


Prolonging the Magic

by The_Lionheart



Series: One Sword [9]
Category: Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty, SCP Foundation
Genre: Ableist Language, Animal Death, Ants, Arguing, Bill being a creep but what the fuck else is new, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Breaking and Entering, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Content warning: Bill Cipher, Crying, Demonic Possession, Dreamscapes, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional breakthroughs, Fake Character Death, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Flashback to Natashoggoth being awful, Flashbacks, Ford cuddles a pig and a human, Gore, Grunkle Ford and Mabel Pines Bonding, Hugging, I'm Sorry, Implied Death, Implied Murder, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Insects, Interrogation, Jealousy, Just two bro's chillin', Kind of a nice fluffy chapter, Literal Angel Fiddleford McGucket, Lots of scenes from August/September 1994, Memories, Minor Character Death, Miscommunication, Mistaken Identity, Non-Sexual Slavery, Nonbinary Character, Oops, Past Child Abuse, People are HEARING but not LISTENING to each other, Poor Aunt Ripley, Poor Grunkle Ford, Psychological Trauma, Psychosis, Reconciliation between family members, Recreational Drug Use, Reunions, Rick making inappropriate toys for children, SCP-106 - Freeform, Self-Harm, Sev'ral Timez is still around, Stan you ass, Suicide, Supporting Character Death, Swap meet!, The Society of the Blind Eye - Freeform, The Upside Down, This entire chapter takes place in like an hour, Tyler makes a good dad/brother, Uncomfortable Discussion about Intercourse, Violence, Wakes & Funerals, a lot of stuff i've already tagged for in previous chapters is in this chapter, alcohol mention, author can't stand the thought of stan being sad and lonely for thirty years, canonical fake character death, deleted scene: shermie stops for gas and gets harassed by gnomes, easily the least supernatural/paranormal chapter of this series to date sorry, gay ace foundation dads, got some good bonding, got some good family times, half the tags for this chapter have already been used, implied slavery, just the aftereffects of terrible stuff, listen if you think Stan got away with not being constantly sassed by a legion of loved ones, nothing actually terrible happens in this chapter, poor shermie, reality ensues, secret long-lost sibling reunion, send help, sorry everybody, there's too many gosh darn tags, this chapter was gonna be longer but i decided against it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2018-09-12 03:46:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 73,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9053902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lionheart/pseuds/The_Lionheart
Summary: I've been waiting for so long, 
    
  

  
    I've been hoping your love's not gone.
  

  
    Houses are sliding in the mud;
  

  
    Rivers are raging in your blood.
  

  
    Where would I be without your love?
  

  
    Where would I be, without your arms around me?
  

  ~ Cake, "Where Would I Be?"





	1. Satan Is My Motor

"I've been thinking," Ripley says brightly, as she and Fiddleford buckle into the front seats of the Ripleymobile.

"Do tell," Fiddleford says, and she drums on the wheel.

"So- what if we talked to Tate today?" she asks, and Fiddleford falls silent. She glances nervously at him, quickly adding, "We don't gotta. I mean, I probably will, he's my friend and everything, but if- if you don't know how you feel yet-"

"This idea been a-percolatin' in yer noggin since Stan an' Rick made up?" Fiddleford tries. Ripley clears her throat- she didn't honestly think she was being that transparent about it, but, well... well nothing. Rick took his grandkids back home with him a whole day ago and Stan's been not quite happy, but... perky and playful. Fiddleford raises his eyebrows over the rims of his glasses and she sighs, starting the car.

"Well, okay, yes," she admits. "Just! Because- because I want you to be happy, Fidds, I wanna see you happy, I wanna see both of you happy."

"Yer sweet," he says, after a minute.

"Sweet," she repeats.

"C'n I git a minute to think on it?" he asks, and she bobs her head in a nod. He offers a small smile, and she plays around with the radio for a minute. Fiddleford clears his throat a little. "So where we headed to now, then?"

"Oh, I was gonna go get some groceries, check in with those clone kids at Tyler's, grab something I need from that... market thing Wendy mentioned. Farmer's market? A market for people, not just farmers," she explains, chewing on her lower lip. "I dunno. I gotta get out of the house."

"Oh," Fiddleford says, glancing nervously at her. "I useter run a stall at the swap meet, y'know."

"That's cool," Ripley says, swallowing drily. "That's real cool. What was your store called?"

"Whosits and Whatsits," Fiddleford says distantly. "An' I sold mainly thingamabobs and thingamajiggers."

"Are those engineering terms?" Ripley asks, and he gently nudges her arm.

"Smartass. So what are ya lookin' fer? I could probably tell ya what stalls got what."

"Oh, Fidds," Ripley says, giving him a warm glance. "Yeah, that's a good- that's a good idea. Well, I'm looking for uh, for fresh wild or white sage."

"Sage, got it," Fiddleford says, pulling a small notepad and pencil out of the glove compartment. "Fresh wild or white. Anythin' else?"

"Um," Ripley says, trying to guess at the correct pronounciation. "Patch-owley oil?"

"Patch-owley oil," Fiddleford says slowly, turning the syllables over in his head for a moment. "Patchouli oil?"

"Uh, I guess so. Some sorta... it's supposed to smell real, uh, strong and specific," Ripley says, coughing. "I dunno, I think hippies like it, I tried to look it up on the computer at the library the other day and people said hippies smell like-"

"Patchouli oil," Fiddleford confirms, scratching his chin. "Ya might wanna give'er a test run before ya buy a lot, it's not fer everybody."

"Ah yeah," Ripley says, considering this. "I'm also gonna need, uh, some kind of oil-based soap. A lot of salt, like, industrial amounts of salt. Oh, um, matches, too, like, a lot of matches."

"What's all this stuff for?" Fiddleford asks slowly.

"Cleaning," Ripley says quickly. "Cleaning... supplies."

"Matches and salt," Fiddleford repeats.

"Yeah, you know, to... you... salt scrubs," Ripley says vaguely, avoiding his gaze. "And then you burn'em up?"

"You... want to make herbal salt scrubs to clean the house- the wooden house- with and then _burn_ it?" Fiddleford asks very carefully, peering suspiciously at her.

"....um, just the bathtub. Lots of people usin' the bathtub," Ripley says hesitantly.

"...okay," Fiddleford says, eyebrows raised. "Is that all we're gettin' at the swap meet?"

"Silver knives, silver bowl, a couple of those big-ass crystals, maybe some cedar branches-" Ripley starts.

"Ripley, are you really usin' this stuff for cleanin' or are you usin' it for purposes of witchcraft?" he asks firmly, his voice getting slightly shrill at the end.

"Not witchcraft! Certainly... not that," Ripley protests, clearing her throat. When she peeks at him in the passenger seat he's still got his arms crossed over his shirt- plaid and flannel like half the shirts that get sold around here, but in soft pastel shades that Ripley thought looked amazing on him in the mall the other day. "I'm... it's for the monster lady problem that I have."

"Oh," Fiddleford says, still frowning a little. "I ain't too fond a'this propensity fer meddlin' with magical spells and mystical what-have-you."

"Well, um, it's, you know. For cleaning out the monster lady. Just... flush her monster-germs right on outta me." Ripley makes a wiping motion with her hand. "Whoosh."

"Does Ford really think this stuff's gonna do all that?" Fiddleford asks skeptically, and when she doesn't reply he gives her his full attention, watching the tension in her face and shoulders as she avoids answering him. "Ripley. Does Ford think this stuff's gonna help you?"

"Ford... might... not... exactly- just, you know- might not exactly know about it," Ripley says delicately, pulling up to the gravel parking lot. Fiddleford puts the notepad down, stunned.

"Gal, I feel more'n a lil sure that you did tell him you been havin' that kinda problem, dincha?" he asks finally.

"I told him some," Ripley says, both hands still at 10 and 2. "I told him there WAS a demon lady and that she messed with me a lot while we were apart and that I was still like, messed up about it, and that I killed her and she's dead."

"Sweetheart, yeah, I mean, that's all important information fer him t'have," Fiddleford says seriously. "But- uh, correct me if'n I'm wrong, but ain't you havin' a real problem with turnin' into some sorta eyeball tongue monster lately?"

Ripley nods mutely, then shrugs.

"Shouldn't Ford know that?" Fiddleford asks slowly.

"I mean, you see how rough this whole... taking down the portal project is treatin' him," Ripley says miserably. "It's doing weird readings at him! He's terrified of what's gonna happen if it triggers itself on again the way it did before we got him, and there's stuff leaking into our reality from somewhere in the portal and it's stressing him out, okay?"

"Hey, it ain't necessary to tell me why that thing's bad news, but don'cha think tellin' him about turnin' into some kinda eldritch abomination's also a real important detail?"

"I will," Ripley says softly. "If I can't get rid of this thing myself, then I will. I haven't _tried_ everything yet. What's he gonna say if I tell'm I need his help and the solution's something I shoulda done already?"

"Prob'bly 'thanks for tellin' me, Ripley,' or similar," Fiddleford says. She huffs, getting out of the car and going around to open the door for him. "You can't keep not-tellin' him, 'specially since both me an' Stan are witness to it."

"I know," Ripley sighs. "I just... I know it's dumb, Fidds, I just... I don't want him to look at me and see her."

"...tell ya what," Fiddleford says, nervously running his hand over his head. "Whatever goofy thing it is yer plannin' with this stuff, we try it once, and if it don't do the trick, you an' me go talk to him together. Deal?"

"Yeah, it's a deal," she agrees, making a wry face.

"And... and after that, then, you give... you give Tate a call, and you'n'me do that one together, too," Fiddleford adds nervously. Ripley immediately takes his hand and gives it a comforting squeeze.

"It's a deal, Fidds."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Okay," Ripley says, staring down at the table in Susan Wentworth's stall with her chin in her hands. "So... you basically get these all wholesale and then people come up and buy the doll parts to make their own unique baby dolls, huh?"

"Yeah, it's a nice little way to pass the time, and you know, sometimes you get the kiddies around here who don't necessarily look like the dollies they sell in stores," Lazy Susan explains, one hand on her hip as she leans forward a little. "So they get to take home somethin' that actually kinda looks like it could be them for once."

"Susan, that's such a good idea," Ripley enthuses, picking up a doll head with little winky eyes. Fiddleford makes every effort not to make eye contact with it again.

"Why thank you, missy. Say, McGucket, that's a nice shirt on ya," Susan says suddenly, manually winking at him. "Brings out the blue in your eyes, handsome!"

"Oh," Fiddleford says. He can feel his face turn red-hot, and the toothy grin Ripley's giving him when he looks to her for assistance is not helping at all. "Th-thank you?"

"Heehee," Susan giggles. "Tell ya what, Miss Ripley, we have a dollmaker's circle that meets first Thursday of the month. I'll give you a starter kit half off if you wanna join us, it'd be a good way to introduce you around to some of the gals."

"Yeah?" Ripley perks up, putting the doll head down. "You know what, I probably won't do it until Dipper and Mabel go home for the school year, but I'll definitely take you up on that in September, Susan. Thank you!"

Susan waves them off with a smile, and Ripley starts off down the row of stalls, before she pauses, gently nudging Fiddleford. "It looked like Susan was putting the flirt on you," she says conspiratorially, edging them closer and closer to a food truck selling hot, cheese-filled arepas.

"Susan's like that with everybody, unless she's chasin' em out the diner with a broom," he says glumly, rubbing his arm.

"It didn't look like she'd be chasin' you with a broom, it looked like she wanted to, you know. Talk and smooch and eat stuff, romancey stuff." Ripley waves a hand. "She must like you a little bit. Remember we went to the diner on Friday? She knew how you liked your coffee and what kind of milkshake you'd want, without even asking. She must have made a point to herself to remember it."

"I don't _remember_ orderin' coffee or milkshakes from'er before Friday," Fiddleford says anxiously, lacing his fingers together. "I don't see how I'd be fit fer... romancey stuff."

"Well. She thinks you're handsome. She's bein' real nice to you lately. And she's also really close with Tate, so, you know, he loves her to death."

Fiddleford almost stumbles into her, catching himself in the nick of time. "Tate- he said that? Really?"

"Well, he... said the Tate version," Ripley says diplomatically. "And it's real obvious that she cares about him a whole lot, too. I like her." She pauses, making a point of glancing over the menu board. "Do... do you like her?"

"I mean," Fidds says, flustered. "She's... kinder than most. She likes strays. I-if I had ta guess, I'd say that's what she likes about me."

"I don't know, I don't have a thing about strays and I love you," Ripley says, fighting not to sound offended for his own sake.

"I don't know if I'd say she loves me," Fiddleford says, rubbing the back of his neck. "She's just bein' nice."

"Well, everybody should be nice to you," Ripley says, frowning slightly. "Well, whatever it is she's doin' or bein', I think she wants to be friends and she seems like a good friend to have."

"That's prob'bly true," Fiddleford allows. He elbows Ripley, gesturing at the board. "I'll get mine with avocado."

"You got it," she tells him, before stepping up to the window to order.

They're still in the process of eating their arepas when Ripley very nearly collides with a young woman wearing a loose, oatmeal-colored cardigan over a white t-shirt. Ripley glances down to make sure she hasn't spilled anything on it and grins, pointing.

"Sorry I almost ran over you, Miss. Why's that alligator wearin' a labcoat?"

"Oh, um," the woman says, blinking up at Ripley from behind her glasses. "Because that's- our- it's our mascot! That's right, and we're all on this... this-"

"Family vacation!" another young person adds, jumping up behind the young woman. They also appear to be wearing the same shirt, but with a longsleeved orange tee shirt under it. Beyond the shirt, though, there isn't an ounce of resemblance between the two of them. "We're, uh, we're RVing across the country!"

"Oh," Fiddleford says, after Ripley gives him a baffled look. "That's real nice. An RV is like one of them campers," he explains to Ripley, and she nods, eyes lighting up.

"Oh, like, uh, the thing where you drive it and it's a house?" she asks. The two youngsters in front of her nod enthusiastically. "That's cool, that's cool! Well, hey, you two oughta bring your family up to the lake, there's a waterfall and an island and some pretty good fishing here. I actually don't know about that, I haven't been fishing, but I've been boating out there and it's nice!"

"Oh, wow, thank you, yes, I'm very- I'll- I'm gonna make our dads take us fishing," the original young lady says, stammering and elbowing her sibling. "Come on, Ginger, we should head back-"

"Hey, are you two bothering those nice people?" someone calls out, and Ripley and Fiddleford check to make sure that they're not the ones being called out. By the time the newcomer gets close enough, though, Ripley can see that they, too, are wearing the same labcoat-wearing alligator t-shirt. "Excuse me, I'm so sorry if my sibling and my sister are bothering you two- I swear, we can't take you guys _anywhere_ -"

"It weren't no trouble," Fiddleford says, rubbing the back of his neck. The longer this goes on the more he wishes he and Ripley were safely back at the car or with Susan or literally anywhere that didn't involve talking to so many energetic strangers all at once.

"Yeah, I practically barrelled into your sister, there, this- this is all my fault, don't need to yell at anybody," Ripley says, clutching her bag closer.

"Yelling?"

"Oh, Tango's not yelling, that's just how they talk," Orange Sleeves (Ginger, Ripley thinks) says.

"Ah. Well, um, okay. Anyway, ya'll have a real good vacation, check out the lake if you like water... oh! My God, Stan would've killed me if I'd neglected to mention the Mystery Shack," Ripley says, and Fiddleford pats her back. "Goodness gracious. Yeah, uh, you kids like mysterious... paranormal stuff?"

"Sometimes," Tango says, eyes gleaming. "What kind of mysterious paranormal stuff?"

"Oh, you know, fun stuff. There's a tour and a gift shop and, uh, lots of cool stuff. Way better than the Tent of Telepathy, don't go there, I hate those guys," Ripley adds firmly. "Right, Fidds? These kids wanna go to the Mystery Shack if they like cool weird stuff."

"That's true," Fiddleford says, brightening a little. "Ain't got the wax museum no more, but there's a ton of them taxidermied cryptids Stan loves ta show off."

"Really?" the first one asks, and Ripley hesitates.

"Ye-es? I think so? Like the Sascrotch and jackalopes and-"

"Wait, wait," Ginger interrupts. "Sascrotch?"

"Yeah, like, a Sasquatch guy but he's in his tightie whities," Ripley says, grinning. "I love that thing!"

"Cover your ears, Angelface," Tango says, covering her ears for her with their hands. "You have a tourist attraction with weird taxidermied cryptids _including a Sexy Bigfoot?"_

"Ya'll should come up and get the grand tour," Fiddleford says, nodding. "Stan'll love yer... enthusiasm."

"Who's this Stan guy?" Ginger asks, eyes sparkling.

"He's Mister Mystery! He knows all kinds of fun stories and good jokes," Ripley says, beaming.

"No, he does not," Fiddleford corrects, because why she would lie to these nice young people he has no idea.

"And we sell like, snow globes and little burping Mister Mystery bobbleheads and like, wind chimes and calendars and stuff," Ripley adds, ignoring Fiddleford's interjection. "It's right up on Gopher Road, number six-eighteen."

"Six one eight, Gopher Road?" Tango asks, and Fiddleford gives them a nod. "Okay, well... maybe we'll drop in! It sounds like the kinda thing Pops'll love."

"Awesome, you won't regret it," Ripley says.

"Well that's a pretty low bar to set, but it'll be more fun than what we've been doing," Tango says, putting their hands on their hips. Ripley glances down at their chest and tenses slightly- Fiddleford almost wouldn't have noticed it if they weren't right next to one another- and plasters on one of the biggest, fakest smiles he's ever seen.

"So, uhm," she starts, then stops, looking up at the slightly-cloudy sky. "Hey look at the time though we gotta go, bye."

"Uh- goodbye?" the youngest one- Angelface?- says, as Ripley starts quickly making her way back to the Ripleymobile. Fiddleford actually has to jog to keep up, although thankfully she stops walking so fast when they get to the parking lot. She looks down at the half-eaten food in her hand, before giving Fiddleford a small, strained smile.

"I'm sorry if you wanted to keep talkin' to those nice young people, Fidds-"

"No, no, I'm alright," he says, blinking. She nods.

"I just- did you see what was on their shirts?"

"The gator wearin' a labcoat? Ya only mentioned it like seventeen times," Fiddleford says drily.

"No, no, the... over the gator, it said 'ROAD TRIP 2012' but the O in road was a symbol," Ripley says quietly, licking her lower lip. "A symbol I haven't... seen in this dimension, but one I used to see in other places. I just... it's weird to see it here."

"What's it look like? I din't notice," Fiddleford says, curious despite his usual distaste for anything from the "other side."

"I'll draw it in the car, let's... let's put our stuff away," she sighs, waiting until their bags are safely tucked away in her trunk before she sits down in the driver's seat. She fumbles with the notepad he'd used to write her shopping list on, staring down at her drawing for nearly half a minute before she hands it over to him.

Two concentric circles like a little target, with three arrows pointed into the middle.

"This some kinda occult space demon thing?" he asks after a moment.

"Nah, it was... some sort of... you know, I'm not sure exactly what it was. Like a paramilitary research group that went on exploratory missions and did dangerous sciencey stuff for reasons that I don't think were ever explained to me."

"Sounds sort of like it's right up your an' Fords' alley," Fiddleford remarks. She huffs.

"Yeah, maybe. It's been a solid... fourteen years and three months and, what, eleven days? Close to," she murmurs, tapping a finger over the drawing. "Since I last saw one of these, and I was not on Earth or even in this universe when I did. And then here in Gravity Falls a bunch of peppy young kids have it on their t-shirts?"

She frowns a little, glancing up at Fiddleford. "I'm just being paranoid, aren't I?"

"Well, on the one hand, it's mighty peculiar," Fiddleford admits. "But that ain't exactly the weirdest, occultest thing anybody's ever seen, even if they ain't from Gravity Falls."

"True," Ripley admits, starting the car. "True. I mean, even if it's connected, which it might be- it's another dimension! I mean, I've met two completely different versions of Rick Sanchez, stands to reason if an entire person is duplicated across dimensions, somethin' simple like a symbol would be like, all over the place."

"I mean, it ain't mathematically _im_ possible," Fiddleford says generously. "But lissen, even if there is a connection, was it somethin' you were scared'a? Because I reckon Ford and Stan'll give a wallopin' to anybody y'like if ya point'em in the right direction. So even if yer right t'be paranoid, yer safe _now_."

"Haha, yeah, you got that right, Fiddsy." Ripley reaches over and pats his hand. "What do you want for dinner? We're on grocery duty, it's Stan's turn on cookin' tonight."

"Stan's only good at breakfast food," Fiddleford points out. Ripley nods at that. "So... breakfast fer dinner?"

"Sounds good to me, McGucket!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Did you kids have a productive day today?" Dr. Elliot asks, looking up from the large, handheld tablet. Tango glances over; Doc appears to be playing Solitaire on a timer.

"Yessir!" Angelface says brightly. "We met a lot of friendly locals, we got the scoop on some cool places to check out on our downtime, and look at this windchime Agent Ginger procured!" Ginger holds up a colorful tin-and-ceramic windchime with a gentle tinkle. "I exposed it to the handheld Kant counter in our field kit, and it has nearly point-seven higher Hume readings than the surrounding reality! I mean, the Hume readings locally are still so low that the chime's area of effect is still significantly less real than normal reality, but it extends a normal-ness bubble for nearly twelve feet around it!"

"Yeah, and that cute little biker guy was selling dozens of'em at this swap meet," Tango adds. "Angelface here was saying earlier that she thinks it's a sort of instinctive reaction to protect against the ambient unreality."

"Very nice, Agents," Dr. Elliot says warmly. "It's very attractive and we're going to find it immensely useful in the monthly data reports. Very well done, all of you."

"Great job, everybody," Grayson says brightly. "In other news-" he says dramatically, slapping a printed copy of a local newspaper down onto the table. Tango, Ginger, and Angelface groan a little at the pun.

"I think we finally have a lead on our elusive Scientist," he says proudly. "This guy fits the profile, he's been sporadically active for nearly thirty years, and he should be very easy to find."

"Local crackpot destroys one million dollars in public property in robotic rampage," Ginger reads out loud. "Wow. Hey- wait-"

Angelface covers her mouth with her hands. Ginger clears their throat.

"Hey, uh, Dad, Pop?" Tango asks slowly. "We don't have to go lookin' for this McGucket person."

"Don't we, Agent?" Doc asks, surprised.

"He told us his address," Ginger says, biting their lip.

"Him and his lady friend seemed really nice in the swap meet today," Angelface says softly, eyes round behind her glasses. "Couldn't we, you know, try the diplomatic approach?"

Grayson pauses to consider this. "Well," he says finally, "we can't... we can't take too many chances. Look, kids-"

"We're not children," Tango says, frowning. "I mean, everybody jokes around, but you two _know_ that, right? We're not helpless-"

"I know you're not," Grayson says. "But the last Tau-4 wasn't helpless either, and the Scientist wiped their entire existence out of this reality."

"We just don't want anything like that to happen to any of you," Doc says kindly, giving them each a hopeful little smile.

"Look, why don't we investigate the address he gave us," Ginger says, and Grayson gives them a nod. "Right? McGucket and the lady have no reason to think we're anything but a bunch of tourists, if it all checks out tonight we'll come in by day to get a better feel for'em, and if it turns out this mad scientist is our mad scientist, we'll nab'im."

"Let's do it, team," Grayson says, patting Ginger on the shoulder. "Here's how we'll do it. Tango, you stay with Doc and Angelface in the Mobile Command Center, monitoring coms and vitals. Ginger and I'll go in, check for anything imminently dangerous, and if everything looks safe we'll try the diplomatic approach."

"What if it doesn't look safe?" Tango asks, and Grayson gives them a crooked grin.

"Then we give'em the _undiplomatic_ approach, Agent."

They break for dinner- Tango forces them to eat "traditional" camping food from when they were in Scouts, like fire-roasted hotdogs and pineapple upside-down cake in-a-can- and reconvene after a short nap. There's maybe another couple of hours' work solidifying their plan of action and then another couple of hours getting geared up; it's not quite one in the morning when they park the RV a couple hundred yards away and send Grayson and Ginger to travel slowly up through the trees.

"Can you hear me okay?" Ginger whispers over the group channel.

"Affirmative," Tango whispers, squinting up at the live feed coming in from the two agents' chest-mounted cameras. "Hume counts are ridiculously low in this cabin, even for this weird little town. Hey, what's that pole thing?"

"Looks like a totem pole to me," Grayson says softly.

"It's a little dark on the cameras, but we're picking up a downright weird set of electronics in there," Angelface says, tapping the console.

"Think it's some sort of illusion? Or the thing has mind-affecting properties?" Grayson asks, pausing mid-step.

"Point your camera at it," Doc commands. He cycles through camera modes, frowning a little. "...no, it looks like a totem pole to me. Totem pole full of wiring and electronics."

"That's probably just a well-disguised cell tower," Tango reasons, frowning. "This thing is a tourist attraction by day."

"Hmm, we'll check it on the way out," Grayson says firmly. "For now, we steer clear."

The darkened cabin looms over them, and even in the safety of the Mobile Command Center Angelface looks worried, her hands clutching at an instrument panel.

"Guys, are you seeing this?" she hisses to Tango and Doc. "There's really weird radiation coming from under the house and inside that gift shop, and something is happening to the Kant counters. They shouldn't be showing us numbers like this," she says, gesturing weakly.

"Away team, Angelface just brought to our attention that there's something really fishy going on with reality under this house," Doc says over the coms, giving Angelface a reassuring pat on the back. "If you even suspect something nasty and extradimensional's about to show up, fall back. Is that clear?"

"Yeah, Pop," Ginger says distractedly, sweeping a flashlight under the porch and into the vending machine before stepping gingerly up onto the wood. Tango sighs under their breath- that's a perfect pun that's never going to get to be used again if they ever do point it out.

The door's locked, and it takes almost twice as long as it normally does for Ginger to get it open. "Well, somebody's spent a lot of money on this," they comment, just loudly enough for the radios to pick up the frustration in their voice.

"Is it weird or-" Grayson stops, but Ginger pops the lock open- finally- and waves him off.

"Just complicated and hefty," they say shortly. "Especially for a town where half the doors we've tried weren't even locked at all. Come on."

The two agents sweep the gift shop- Tango has to admit, it does seem both very corny and interesting, like a jokey backwoods parody of the Foundation.

"Hooooly shit, scan that vending machine!" Tango gasps, and Angelface stiffens at their side. "Something fucked is going on behind there."

"What Agent Tango means," Doc adds quickly, as the agents swivel towards the offending machine. "Is that it appears that there are deeply concerning radiation levels and Hume counts behind the vending machine. Do not approach the vending machine."

"Well that-" Ginger starts, and then they stop, backing bodily into Grayson as something small snuffles into the room and pauses to stare up at Ginger, who is now pointing their sidearm at it. "What is that thing?!"

"It's a piglet," Angelface coos, leaning close. "Don't shoot it, it's just a lil' baby."

"It's pretty big," Grayson says doubtfully. "Are you sure it's a baby pig?"

"You guys have obviously never seen what an adult pig looks like," Angelface says, grinning a little. "That's so cute, the mad scientist has a pet baby pig."

"That is pretty cute," Grayson admits under his breath. He starts to say something else, but he and Ginger freeze- it takes a moment for the team in the RV to realize it's because there's someone walking down the hall. Grayson and Ginger dive for cover- Grayson behind the counter, barely saving a snowglobe before it falls, Ginger into the center of a circular rack of t-shirts; in the RV, Angelface is squeezing Tango's hand so hard it hurts.

"-swear to God, Jeff, if that noise turns out to be you and your buddies again I'll-" a tall figure in a hooded sweater and pajama pants mutters with an audible yawn, a pair of glasses tucked into the neck of their sweater. The figure seems to focus on the pig, leaning a little on the broom in one hand. "Oh, Waddles. What are you doin' out an' about, piggy?"

"That's the lady we met," Angelface whispers, and Tango nods.

"Aunt Ripley?" someone asks, and a kid- a kid!- wearing a purple nightdress with a... floppy disk on the front steps out and collides with the adult.

"Oh, sweetheart, what are you doing up?" the adult- Aunt Ripley- says, picking up the pig and giving the girl an audible smooch.

Beside Tango, Doc tenses, eyes widening as he stares up at the screens, and the barely-visible woman half-obscured by a jar of fake eyes on one side and a rack of shirts on the other screen.

"I heard a noise," the girl says, yawning.

"Waddles was scootin' around makin' weird noises," Aunt Ripley says warmly. "I was worried we might've got broke into. You know the gnomes get up to all kinds of mischief when they're hungry or bored."

"Gnomes?" Tango repeats quietly, frowning.

"They weren't here, though, right?" the girl asks sleepily.

"Nah, and if they are here, _Jeff,_ they'll know what I'm gonna give'em if I find 'em!" The girl giggles at her aunt's proclamation, and the pig snorts a little. The aunt chuckles, putting a hand on the girl's head. "Come on, pumpkin, I'll tuck you and Waddles in."

"I want cocoa now," the girl protests, and the aunt huffs out a small laugh.

"Noooo," Angelface hisses. "No cocoa, little girl. Sleep now."

"We'll have cocoa with breakfast, sweetie. Cross my heart." They walk out of the room, carrying the pig. It is several minutes before they hear the door upstairs close, and the woman, Ripley, passes by the gift shop doorway again. She pauses, poking her head in the room.

Grayson and Ginger are motionless; in the RV, Tango is also completely still, while Doc's hands are pressed over his scruffy, bearded face, peeking at the screens in horror.

"Jeff, if I find out you're here, I will punt you into next month if you don't show yourself right now," she says to the room at large, cocking her head to listen for noises. After a while she sighs. "I really am gettin' paranoid."

She leaves. A door shuts. Grayson and Ginger wait several more minutes before they dare to beat a hasty retreat.

The agents wait until they're past the treeline before they make any noise that isn't carefully hidden, too-shallow breathing.

"Fuck, oh, fuck, Doc, did you see what I saw?" Grayson asks over the radio, panting.

"Get back for the debrief, team," Doc says faintly. "Grayson, you and I need to speak in private."

"I almost shot some little girl's pet pig," Ginger wheezes.

"Yeah, but you didn't," Tango says, leaning back in their chair. They pull the video feed from Ginger's chest-cam and scroll back through it until they get to the inside of the gift shop, trying to figure out what exactly it was that Doc and Grayson were so worried about-

-and pauses, zooming in on a frame with a sinking feeling in their chest.

"Uh, guys," they say softly, turning the screen so Angelface and Doc can see the live security camera blinking gently from the corner of the gift shop's ceiling.

Angelface groans.

"At least their faces are covered," Doc sighs, massaging his temples.

"What're we going to do?" Tango asks.

"We're..." Doc grimaces. "We're going to have to think about what our next steps are. If this 'McGucket' is our Scientist and he has a chance to see this footage..."

He swallows. "It's... not looking great for us if he decides to do what he did to the last Foundation team that went hunting after him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: I can't count, fixed a really obvious error in Ripley's timekeeping, lol. Any other differences in timekeeping is reflective of the fact that she's not 100% chronologically synched with regards to how much time passed in the portal vs how much time passed on Earth.


	2. Mexico

"And you're _sure_ you'll be fine here by yourselves," Stan says, and Ripley reaches up and fixes his tie with a beaming smile.

"Stan, come on, you and the kids have been looking forward to doing the mini-golf for like, probably forever. If anybody comes up to do any shopping or asks for the tour-" She pauses, considering her options. "-we'll figure it out."

"Sure?" Stan asks, adjusting his fez in the mirror.

"Stan, Ford and Fiddleford are two incredibly gifted mad scientists and I'm not _completely_ helpless, I'm sure between the three of us we can figure out how to work your cash register," Ripley grins, patting his arm. "The kids are bouncing off the walls. Not literally. They're bouncing around next to the Stanleymobile swinging their golf clubs."

"What?!"

"Go on and have fun!" she commands. "If it makes you feel better, I'll wear my fanciest outfit when I'm pretending to be you."

"Your fanciest outfit is _my_ fanciest outfit," Stan grumbles. She spreads her arms with a huge, cheesy smile, and he huffs a small laugh at her. "Okay, fine. You three dingdongs will probably nerd it up doing something boring and nerdy all day, anyway."

"That's the spirit," she says with a wink. She almost lets him go, grabbing him by the arm mere seconds before he steps throught the door. "Oh, oh, wait, Stan. Can I look at the security camera footage from last night? I think a couple of gnomes were rootin' around in the gift shop last night and I want to see which ones was doin' it before I go off to the woods to yell at the wrong lil fellas."

"What? You don't gotta ask," Stan says, huffing. "You live here and those bastards know not to break in anymore. The tapes are in my office, but I don't want ya running off into the forest without backup again-"

"I won't, I won't," she promises. "I'm a paragon of safety rules. I won't."

"You still keep trying to argue that the Buddy System's not a real thing," Stan retorts, patting her shoulder. "Alright, toots, I'll come back around five or six."

"Stan, go be the favorite Grunkle we all know you to be," Ripley commands. "Golf all damn day with the kiddos and eat fancy tacos at the fancy taco place."

"It ain't nothin' like _real_ tacos," Stan sighs fondly. "The food's just about the only thing I miss about Mexico, y'know-"

"Dipper's gonna whack your side mirror off, Stan, go," Ripley huffs, smooching his grizzled old cheek before pushing him bodily out the door. She waves from the porch as they drive off, watching the road just in case Stan decides to turn back around, and sighing happily when he does not. She heads into the gift shop, glances around conspiratorily, and flips the Open sign over in the window so that it, in fact, reads Closed, using exaggerated movements for the benefit of whoever just walked into the room behind her. "Bwahahaha, I'm a sneakin' sneaker. Behold my evil plot."

"Terrible, just terrible," Ford yawns from behind her, coming up and giving her a companionable squeeze before he returns both hands to the work of supporting his steaming mug of coffee. "Thought we were supposed to run Stanley's little giftshop of horrors for the day."

"Literally none of us wants to do that," Ripley reasons, picking up a snowglobe and giving it a vigorous, gleeful little shake. "Although I do think you need to take a break from downstairs. Why don't you and Fiddleford do something fun? He mentioned wanting to build a little personal computer for hisself, you could show him how our wrist mounts work."

"Perhaps later," Ford says, reaching out and wrapping his hand around the globe to prevent her from shaking it further. "Say, did I hear correctly that the gnomes were in the house last night?"

"Oh, I dunno, I thought I heard someone bein' rascally last night, I'm just gonna pop in to Stan's office to check the tapes," Ripley says agreeably, and Ford drains the rest of his coffee in one go.

"I'll come with," he says abruptly.

"Oh, you don't have to," she tells him, blinking. "Probably going to be tedious and boring, love."

"All the more reason not to let you subject yourself to such torment alone," he says firmly, and she grins and leans against his side.

"Aw, Professor."

Ford clears his throat, working himself up to whatever he wants to say next. "Also, it's... I've noticed- well- there have been some observations," he says wretchedly.

"Observations 'bout what," Ripley asks half-heartedly, taking a seat at Stan's desk and fiddling with the computer attached to his surveillance system to mask the sudden lurch of resigned dread- he's noticed, she realizes. He's noticed that I'm not always... all me. He's noticed that I've been _hiding_ it.

"About... the... nature of normal human relationships," he says, steeling himself visibly. Ripley blinks at the screen, her brain struggling to connect that statement to her fears. "Normal human adult relationships," he adds unnecessarily.

"We are... normal human adults," she hazards. He breathes out a sigh.

"I've been catching up on some of the television and movies that I've missed, thanks to the kids, and it cannot help but be noticed that there are... expectations. There is a certain degree of physical intimacy implied by a marriage between two persons of like minds, a relationship that is, well, a relationship such as ours," he says. Ripley's mind short-circuits for a minute while she stares blankly at the screen.

"What, like, hugs and massages and spooning and stuff?" she asks finally, wracking her brain for examples of things they've done or usually do.

"Indeed," he says, and she tenses slightly as his hands come to rest on her shoulders. "It's become increasingly apparent that I- while not a young man by any means-"

"Ford, you've lost me," she admits, figuring out how to rewind the video from the gift shop while trying her best to detangle his sentences with only half her attention. "Look, what's this about?"

"All those years traveling the dimensions together, I thought- that perhaps if we were settled, if we were safe, there might be... things you would want," he says softly. "Things that I have failed to provide as your, um, spouse-"

"Ford, if this is- if this is some sort of, I dunno, guilt thing, I really wish you wouldn't, babe. If times got hard, it was equally hard for both of us," she says firmly, thinking back to how often they struggled to scavenge enough to eat.

"...indeed," he says again, sounding dreadful. His heartbeat bounces gently in the star sapphire pendant on her chest, and she realizes with a pang that he's frightened. Of... her? Ripley takes a deep breath. He's right to be scared of her, she's literally- she's turning, literally, into a monster-

"So... we are in agreement, then," he says uncertainly. "When, um. When should we... schedule it?"

"Hah?" Ripley manages, squinting at the screen before really putting his words through her brain. "Wait, what, schedule?"

"You're right," he says quickly, voice thick with anxiety. Ripley turns slowly to look at him, his hands falling away. Does he mean... scheduling the cleansing ritual? Did Fidds say something? Or- "You're right, you're right, it's- spontaneity is, I hear, incredibly important-"

"Ford, what the fuck are you talking about?" she asks finally.

"Intercourse?" he asks, blinking owlishly. Ripley gapes at him, and he draws himself up. "I-I know I'm... not exactly anyone's ideal mate, however I-"

"Have you been talking about... having sex?" she asks, taken aback. "Like, this whole time?"

"I... thought we both were," he says, before rallying. "Wait, were you not-?"

"What? Oh, no, nono, no, I mean, yeah, I definitely... am... on the same page as you on that one," she says, turning quickly to face the screen. "One hundred percent on the same... uh... we're both... thinking the same thing, of course, I just... uh, we're in Stan's office."

"I didn't think we'd be doing such things here," Ford says, horrified.

"I mean this isn't where we'd wanna talk about it either," Ripley adds, burying her face in one hand. Well, it's... not terror and disgust at the knowledge that she's an inhuman freak, that's got to be good. "Look, uh, let me just... this is, um, this is pretty important, so, we had better, uh, concentrate on the task at hand."

"Oh, um, of course," Ford says awkwardly. Ripley chews on her lower lip, drumming her fingertips on the desktop. Now she's gone and done it, she's made him feel not-desirable or... not-sexy or... whatever. She clears her throat.

"I mean, you're very, um, you're, you know, you're the... sexiest man," she says, trying desperately not to die of mortification.

"What was that?" Ford asks sharply.

"I said you're the sexiest-" she begins miserably.

"No! I mean, thank you, but, on the screen-" he gestures, and she goes back a few frames, eyes widening.

A pair of black-clad figures, their faces obscured, walk stealthily into the gift shop. Ripley's hand goes to her mouth as they speak a little, sweeping the room with handguns. One turns and points their gun at Waddles- Waddles! Ripley wants to whimper a little at the thought, even though she knows the pig's currently sleeping upstairs- and then, to Ripley's rising horror, they dive for cover as she wanders into the room.

"Oh no," Ripley gasps, hands over her mouth as Mabel enters the room, Mabel is in _danger_ because Ripley's too stupid to put on her glasses and see that there's dangerous people in the same room hiding with their guns and Mabel could have been _shot_ she could be _dead_ -

Ford's hands tighten on her shoulders. "Breathe," he says softly.

"I didn't see," she whispers harshly.

"I know, I know, but you've got to breathe, Ripley, everyone breathes," he tells her.

"People inside the house," she manages, as they sit for a while in the gloom, as she pokes her head into the gift shop again and fails, again, to spot the intruders. They eventually leave the way they came.

"They're gone," Ford murmurs.

"Bugs," Ripley suggests, burying her face in her hands. "We have to- we have to run a sweep, we have to check the lock, I can't believe- must have forgotten to latch the deadbolt, that's the only-"

"Can you make it tell you where they went?" Ford asks.

"I don't know... Stan might have a camera pointed the right way, let me look-" she mumbles, lowering her hands to check the available footage. There's one- Ripley considers it, realizes it must be mounted on that totem pole- that shows the two intruders sneak up from the forest's edge, and then run like hell back in the same direction.

"Not very useful," Ford sighs, disappointed. "I'd hoped we'd catch a glimpse of a getaway vehicle or-"

"Could be useful," Ripley says faintly. "We know they're humanoid and came through a part of the forest that's mostly mundane."

"Probably human, then," Ford suggests.

"We gotta tell Fidds," Ripley realizes, cringing slightly at the thought. "We gotta- we gotta tell Stan."

"Fiddleford now, Stan later," Ford says, rubbing the pads of his thumbs into her back. "I have a few devices up my sleeve that can detect and destroy listening and surveillance bugs, so we don't need to worry about things... spying on the kids. Fiddleford is here, he can help."

Ripley breathes out a sigh that ends abruptly in a sob.

"She's okay," Ford says quietly. "They're all okay. It's okay."

"What if they're working for Bill or _her_ or-" Ripley shakes her head, inhaling sharply.

"We'll figure it out," he says, pressing his closed mouth against the top of her head for a moment, breathing in the smell of her hair. "It's not Bill's style to send in armed paramilitary forces and not gloat about it."

"But it is _her_ style," Ripley says, shaking. "She could be sending them in _right now_ to get Stan and the kids and-"

"Would she have hurt Waddles or Mabel in front of you? Would she have made them do it?" he asks. She nods, and he loops an arm around her shoulders. "They didn't do what she would have made them do. Ergo, it's some other person or group. If anything, they're probably representatives of the Shadow Government checking to see if I'm still active for their research. Besides all _that_ , Ripley," he adds, going for cheerful. "She can't hurt you anymore. She can't hurt anyone anymore. You killed her and she's gone."

"What if... she's not all the way gone," Ripley says softly.

"That's preposterous, sweetheart, you obliterated her using portal technology," he says proudly. She sighs.

"What if I failed, Ford? What if... what if she's still around." She swallows, rubbing the front of her shoulder a little, before meekly catching onto his hand. "What if she did something and infected me with her evil weirdness and she's been trying to turn me into another one of her?"

"We'd _know_ if you were turning into an evil chaos goddess, Ripley," Ford says soothingly. Ripley breathes out a laugh.

"I-I know what you're saying, Stanford, but-"

There's a jingle from the other room, and Ripley goes back to the live feed, frowning. A group of tourists has, apparently, ignored the "Closed" sign on the door and is standing around in the gift shop. Ripley's heart sinks as she realizes that the door is probably still unlocked from when the intruders last night broke in.

"We need to finish this conversation later," she mutters. "We should have had it a while ago. Can you keep them occupied while I get dressed and wake Fidds up?"

"I suppose," Ford sighs. "I'm not at all fond of the idea."

"No, me neither. I'm not looking forward to wearing Stan's spare girdle," she mutters.

"Why _would_ you- _why_ would you-" he stammers, and she pats her stomach through her pajama top.

"We're built similar, punchy," she says, grinning. "Gotta squeeze inta that Mr. Mystery suit jacket."

"Paunchy," he corrects, frowning. "You're not... built like Stan, though, you're- svelte. And graceful. Stan's neither of those things."

She puts a hand on his shoulder, waggling her eyebrows. "Have you seen Stan dance, hon? He's svelte and graceful. You just don't think so because he's your brother and you guys are grouchy."

"I'm not grouchy," Ford protests, and she gives him an utterly deadpan look before he sighs guiltily. "I may, on occassion, come across as being slightly- slightly, mind you- _grumpy_."

"Tomayto, tomahto," she tells him, smooching the side of his jaw on her way out. "Try to make the Mystery Shack museum sound cool enough for a tour, I don't want to get all the way dressed only to have to take it off because they left."

"Yes, dear," he sighs after her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Ahem," a man in a trench coat and a cable-knit turtleneck says, as if he won't be broiled alive in this summer heat. His hands are folded behind his back and he's giving them an imperious look through his hornrimmed glasses. In a detached way, Grayson thinks, this guy is pretty handsome. Not as good as Doc, but-

Grayson starts coughing, and Doc reaches over and thumps his back. "You okay?" he asks, and Grayson shakes his head frantically.

"I apologize for any adverse reactions, but these... exhibits are very old and delicate," the guy says sternly. "Welcome to the... Mystery Shack."

"Uh," Angelface says, smiling nervously. "A-Are you Mister Mystery? I talked to a nice couple the other day who said they lived here with someone who gives tours...?"

"Wh- oh," the man says, stroking his chin for a moment. "Unfortunately, the usual Mr. Mystery won't be conducting tours today, but my, ah, my wife, Mrs. Mystery, will be along shortly."

"So does that make you the usual Mr. Mystery?" Ginger asks, hands slung too-casually in their pockets.

"That makes me the _original_ Mr. Mystery, if one must use the appellation," he says, suppressing a sigh.

"Oh, your last name isn't really Mystery then?" Tango asks too-innocently, and Ginger elbows them sharply.

He gestures to the small, cheaply-made pamphlets on the countertop. Angelface picks one up and hands it to Grayson.

"Sole owner and proprietor Stanford Pines," he reads, and the man nods. Doc perks up.

"The _scientist_ Stanford Pines? Theoretical physicist and popular-science writer Stanford Pines?" he asks, and the man actually takes a step back, blinking.

"Pardon?"

"Oh my! Christopher Elliot, I was a lecturer in radiobiology for three semesters at the Arizona Institute of the Sciences in Sedona," Doc says brightly, apparently forgetting his entire cover identity and thrusting his hand out. Pines hesitantly takes it, and Doc shakes it enthusiastically before seeming to notice what Grayson spotted right away. "Goodness, your typing speed must be phenomenal!"

"Ah, sure," Pines says, and Ginger and Angelface turn to Doc with identically flushed embarassed grimaces.

"Pops, you really hitting on the guy in front of Dad here?" Tango asks, and Doc's jaw drops.

"Absolutely not! I just wanted to say, Dr. Pines, I read the article you published back in '87 about the theoretical effects of ionizing radiation in the form of cosmic rays on household items and I must say, I always wished I could read an entire book of your theoretical quantum science," he says, too far down the gushing-about-science rabbit hole to be properly scandalized by Tango's suggestion. "The way you described the gradual material creep and ultimate destruction of commonplace lawn chairs and plastic flamingos when exposed to cosmic rays, why, it was like you'd witnessed it yourself!"

"I... see," Pines says slowly.

"Absolutely! Why, the concept of researching wildly implausible scientific experiments on mundane objects led me to the career path I've taken all my life," Doc enthuses.

"You mean, it wasn't my handsome face?" Grayson jokes, but he wonders- well, clearly this guy is looking cagey the more Doc goes on, and it sounds more and more like this guy is into the same kind of Weird Science that their _actual_ target Scientist was known for playing with, and definitely the weirdness that they picked up from inside this bizarre little house last night.

"Nonsense," Doc says firmly. "I would never have encountered your handsome face if it wasn't for my research."

 "Oh, well, in that case-" Grayson starts, nonchalantly catching Tango's eye and signalling to them to follow his lead. "You know, if you don't mind, we'd probably like to talk a little more about your career as a scientist than this cryptozoology stuff-"

"I'm sorry, I-" Pines starts, flustered, and then the woman from last night bounces into the room, wearing a black suit jacket and white shirt that's straining a little at the buttons over a pair of faded jeans and heavy boots.

"Turns out there's no way I'm fitting the suit pants," she says apologetically, before raising a cane topped with an eight-ball. Grayson blinks, and the feeling from last night of a terrible sort of familiarity returns. She gives the group a dazzling smile, tipping a flowery straw hat at Pines. "How do I look? Mysterious enough?"

"A little disturbing that you're wearing Stan's clothing," Pines admits, before catching what just came out of his mouth. "I mean, that's- not the hat, where's the hat?"

"Stan's got the hat, hon," she says, before peering over at the assembled group. "Hey, it's those kids from the swap meet! I didn't think ya'll'd've come by so soon."

"Ripley, ah, if you're taking over from here, I'm just going to... go... join Fiddleford with his work," Pines says, and before he can really tell himself to maintain his cover Grayson's mind connects and he strides forward, grabbing the woman by the wrist.

"Ripley?" he repeats. A glassy-eyed, blond-haired human woman, early twenties, who'd jabbered in an alien language with some sort of tentacle-faced thing that'd put a leash on her, proudly telling him and Doc her name like it was something she'd made herself, named after the former second-in-command of Mobile Task Force Tau-4. She'd be in her late thirties, now.

A woman in her late thirties stares down at him, a graying blond braid on one shoulder.

"Buddy, I ain't opposed to kickin' ya'll out without givin' ya the tour," she says calmly, but her jaw and eye are twitching, and her arm's so tense in Grayson's grip it feels like an iron bar.

"Dad?" Angelface asks tentatively behind him. "You, uh, you wanna let the nice lady give us the tour?"

"I'm sorry," he says, mortified as he lets go of her. "I'm so sorry. I- I thought- you reminded me of someone and I thought-"

 Grayson can feel the blush seeping over his face and ears, even as he notices that Tango and Ginger's hands are subtly hovering next to their sidearms. Pines' six-fingered hand is not-so-subtly hovering over his.

"I'm sorry," Grayson repeats. "I- why don't you guys take the tour, I'll just wait here for you, okay? I don't want to ruin the trip."

The woman cocks her head to one side, eyes gliding between him and Doc.

Grayson had always assumed that woman- that girl, she'd been no older than the kids are now, Tango's a year older than she'd been back then- must have died. It was unspoken between him and Doc Elliot, because... well... because it would have been better if she'd made it out alive.

"It's fifteen a head for the tour," she says, and Grayson digs three twenties out of his pocket and waves Doc and the kids off.

"You have fun," he says, and leans back against the counter to wait, Pines standing stiffly in the corner with a calculating expression on his face.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"We just have to get my bag," Arliss Grayson says, forcing the lock. It's been- well, it feels like it's been nearly forty-eight hours since they were dragged back here by an alien they're pretty sure is the one who bought them at an auction just after they were captured. He's younger than he looks, a promising Mobile Task Force agent with a bright career ahead of him. He's been awarded medal after medal, he's made allies of enemies, he's made corpses of enemies. He'd led his fellow agents in a desperate firefight to avoid being taken by whoever these aliens are. He's never lost a fellow agent on a mission before this. He and Dr. Chris Elliot are the only members of their team left.

Best not to think about it.

"Sir," Grayson says, and Dr. Elliot blinks at him. "Sir, before we go, we need to go grab that human girl and get her back to the Foundation."

"Do you think she's anomalous in some way from her exposure to the multiverse?" Dr. Elliot asks, blinking, and Grayson shoots him a perplexed look.

"No, sir, I think she's somebody's _pet_ here and oughta be home on Earth- any Earth- with other humans," he says slowly. Dr. Elliot's entire face brightens up, and Grayson- too old at twenty-seven to realize certain truths he's ignored about himself- falls just a little bit in love. _Inappropriate_ , he reminds himself darkly.

"You're absolutely right, Agent Grayson," he says.

"Sir, you know, if we die," Grayson says, rubbing the back of his neck. "You could just call me Arliss at this point."

"Well," Dr. Elliot says slowly, looking around. "If... if we're to be informal with one another, Arliss, if it's all the same to you, I'd prefer if you didn't call me Sir."

"Oh," Grayson says, climbing up a set of shelves to get to the bag of personal items their alien captors had mistakenly assumed weren't weapons. "Well, what, uh, what would you like me to call you, then?"

"I have no preference," Dr. Elliot says seriously, and Grayson laughs.

"Alright, Doc."

They make it outside, under an alien gray-green sky, and it takes more than a day to figure out where they're going and pick their way through the streets, dodging locals and what appears to be surveillance robots. The house they'd met the girl in is already empty, cordoned off with steely cables flashing dark blue warnings in the alien alphabet they've seen around. They ignore this reality's version of police tape. There's no sign of the girl; no sign of the alien who'd apparently been her owner either, but they find what clearly appears to be a bedroom, a small, shoulder-height cage with a thin sleeping mat on the floor, an uncomfortably long bed soaked through with the gooey blue stuff that passes for blood in these weird aliens.

"Well," Dr. Elliot says kindly, putting a hand on the middle of Grayson's back. "Good for her. She... she must have gotten away."

"She might not even be from the same Earth as us," Grayson says numbly, and Dr. Elliot nods. "She might've got back to her own Earth."

Neither of them believes it.

"Doc," Grayson says, fumbling with a small bauble in his bag. "I'm gonna... I'm gonna open a Way. It's... it's not gonna get us home, but it's gonna get us to the Library, and they'll... they'll be able to point us in the right direction."

"Are you sure?" Dr. Elliot asks doubtfully. "I've heard of those... folks. They're none too fond of us, aren't they? What makes you think they'd help us?"

"Same reason I got this thing in the first place, Doc. Somebody owed me a really _big_ favor," Grayson says.

They do, eventually, get home. Grayson is benched for months after their debrief, and Dr. Elliot brings him coffee from the cafeteria most mornings, and they spend fifteen years slowly and awkwardly folding one another into every aspect of their lives, what little there is of them that exists outside of their work. That, too, is unspoken between them.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Pines waits until Ripley and Doc and the kids are all out of sight and mostly out of earshot before he comes closer.

"Put the gun on the countertop where I can see it," he says flatly.

"'Scuze me?" Grayson asks, and Pines gives him a severe look. Grayson smiles faintly.

"We're not looking for any trouble," he says, carefully taking his handgun out of the holster and gently placing it on the countertop.

"No?" Pines bites out.

"I  mean, technically, we came looking to see if McGucket was going to be any trouble," Grayson admits, and he can almost admire the way the older man draws on him for that one. The gun in his hand looks fantastic, like the kind of futuristic bullshit weaponry Grayson used to see in comic books when he was a kid. Grayson puts his hands up. "We're not doing anything."

"You have seconds to give me a reason not to blow your brains out," Pines says, with the hard-edged calm of a man who's done it before.

"Well, it's not a great idea," Grayson says, trying for reasonable. "Pretty sure if my kids see you do that you're going to die, and I don't want that on any of their consciences."

"If you're trying to appeal to my emotions, you're failing," Pines tells him.

"I'm not," Grayson says sincerely. "I'm lettin' my agent know they need to put the gun away."

"Dad," Tango sighs from behind Pines, stepping close enough that the barrel of their gun hits the back of his head with a barely-audible _dink_. "You can't just tell the target that I'm here."

"Stanford Pines isn't the target," Grayson says firmly, hands still up. "Put it away, Tango."

"What? Are you joking? He has a gun pointed at you, I'm not gonna just-" Tango starts, and Grayson sighs.

"Agent Gasparian," he says. "I am ordering you to holster your sidearm."

Pines is perfectly still, narrow-eyed and suspicious.

"You said the Scientist killed people," Tango says shakily. "You said the Scientist killed an entire task force and kidnapped an agent into some other _universe_."

"Yes," Grayson says, staring into Pines's eyes. "And one teenaged girl, the only survivor of that attack."

Pines sucks in a breath, but says nothing.

"Dad, if he's doing some sort of, I dunno, mind control thing, okay, I'm gonna get you out of this-" Tango promises fervently.

"You know why I got taken off active field duty for all those years, right, Tango? I'm sure you and Ginger did a little digging when you got the assignment," Grayson says softly. "Dr. Elliot and I got... lost out there, in one of those other universes. And we met the girl- woman, I guess, by that point- and she told us about the Foundation agent who'd tried to save her."

"Dad, I don't-" Tango says, and Grayson sighs.

"Agent, Dr. Pines can't be the Scientist who killed those people and kidnapped that woman because I'm pretty sure he's _married_ to her."

"I don't know who you people are," Pines says, and there's a tremble in his voice. "But if you- if you're-"

"Hey, fellers, I need a eight-letter word fer intangible-" an aggressively Southern older man says, bouncing into the room with a crossword in hand. Grayson recognizes him as McGucket from the newspapers. The old man stops, jaw dropping open as his left foot starts tapping against the hardwood. "What... what is goin' on here?"

"We came here looking for the bastard that killed eleven Foundation agents and threw a girl into the multiverse," Grayson says, and Pines's eye twitches. "I think we might have... severely misunderstood whose path we were tracking."

"You think?" Pines says finally, and lowers his gun. "Whoever you're looking for... she was taken from Atlanta, Georgia, in 1994. Neither Fiddleford nor myself were anywhere near there during that time."

"Dad- Commander Grayson, _sir_ ," Tango says.

"We should probably... we should probably leave," Grayson says, floundering. "We... we didn't come here to fuck your lives up any more than it already has."

"Grayson and Elliot," Pines says slowly. "You were the last human beings she met before me." Pines frowns a little. "She's going to want to talk to you both."

"Ford," McGucket says warningly. "What in the sam hill is all this about?"

He is met with a few moments of baffled silence. Grayson shrugs at Pines; he has no idea how this happened- although, he thinks, cheering up just a little, Doc's gonna be over the moon when he finds out.

"Ethereal," Tango says, sounding defeated as they put their pistol away. "Eight letters, means intangible. This mission is _fucked up_ , Dad."

"It fits," McGucket mutters to himself, glancing at the puzzle in his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 9/17/17 Edit: edited the year Stan published that paper for timeline reasons.


	3. Never There

Fiddleford pops up just before Ripley unveils the Sascrotch.

"Hey, uh, fellers, the game's up," he says simply, and she blinks at him, hands fisted in the sheet covering the taxidermied monstrosity.

"The game?" she echoes, and the family on tour is looking suddenly pretty sheepish- and one of them's missing, how did Ripley miss that-

"Ye-eah," Fiddleford says slowly. "Ford said to tell ya these people are from yer friend John's Foundation an' that the older fellas know who you are."

"Huh," Ripley says, her smile freezing in place. "Huh, you- but-"

The older gentleman- Pop, the kids had called him- gives her a perplexed look that morphs into a sheepish smile. Ripley feels like her skin's crawling, and she blinks at him, at the young adults with him, at Fiddleford.

"Um," she says, and Fiddleford steps forward, because he knows her well by now. "Um. S-so. Does that... does that mean no more tour?" she asks faintly.

"Can we still see Sexy Bigfoot?" Ginger asks hopefully, and Ripley gapes at them for a moment before twitching the sheet off.

"Sascrotch," she says, pressing a hand to her forehead. "You're... you're with the Foundation?"

"You've heard of it?" Angelface asks, and Ripley frowns slowly, as Pop raises on hand.

"Agent Grayson and I have met her before, Junior Researcher Angelface," he says hopefully. "Team, this... this is Miss Ripley Savage, isn't it?"

"It is," Ripley says hoarsely, eyes darting from face to face before she reaches out and grabs Fidds by the hand. "You're alive. And that's... Grayson, in the other room, then."

"We're so happy that you're okay," the man- Pop- Elliot says, and Ripley squeezes Fidds' hand.

"Uh, ditto," she chokes out.

Ripley keeps Fiddleford close, just in case, but when they enter the gift shop- well, Ford's not relaxed, but the other man is. And now that she knows what to look for, she can even see it, the faces that... fifteen years ago, the first humans she'd met in the multiverse, the last ones who talked to her before Ford, the two men who had not only known about the Foundation John had been in but had wanted to help her-

-Ripley takes a step back, pressing against an old-fashioned diver's suit with a creepy old rabbit mask inside the helmet.

"I, uh," Grayson says, carding shaking fingers through salt-and-pepper hair. "I thought you'd be a little happier to see us? Hi, by the way. We... we came, uh, we broke out and we came back and you were gone, I thought, maybe-"

"Sold to a pitfighting ring," Ripley says automatically, sweating in Stan's suit jacket. "Ford? Is- this is real?"

"Well, they're human," Ford says, tapping something on his wrist mount, and Fiddleford and the other man- Pop/Elliot- crane their necks to look at what he's doing. "That doesn't necessarily mean they're not shapeshifters, but they... seem to be sincere."

"I'm so confused," Angelface says, as Tango and Ginger draw protectively to her sides. "So does that mean- is everything okay, then? What about the radiation, what about the Hume counts-"

"That was _you_ last night," Ripley realizes, and both Grayson and Ginger turn pink. "You broke in. You- you gave me a heart attack today, you know?"

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Grayson says, and Elliot puts his hand over his mouth.

"We didn't mean to alarm anyone," he says, and Tango clears their throat.

"Dads, I hate to, uh, break up the reunion," they say flatly. "But so what if these people aren't _the_ Scientist we're looking for? They're clearly a... collective of anomalous scientists who are literally sitting on something that could destroy reality."

"A collective," Ripley repeats, before the lightbulb in her head goes off, distant from all of the other things clamoring for her attention. "Yeah, hey, between you two and Stan, you really are a collective of mad scientists, aren't you-"

"Guys, I'm not convinced this isn't some kind of mind control thing. You have theoretical physicist Pines tampering with the fabric of reality and evil destructive roboticist McGucket, and whoever this... other guy is, this can't be safe for anybody. It's our job to put a stop to this, even if it's not the thing we came here to stop," Tango says forcefully, and Ford's eyes narrow.

"Listen here, you little punk-"

"Language!" Ripley says, then frowns. "Wait, no, that's- that's not a language- listen. No. Nobody's evil here. You guys... listen, come on. Fiddleford's not evil," she says firmly, squeezing Fiddleford tightly against her side.

"Thanks," he mutters, looking down.

"We're also not going to destroy reality," Ford says insistently.

"I mean, you _would_ say that," Ginger says, frowning.

"Well, in this case we're right," Ford tells them.

"Yeah, and at any rate, any element of surprise has been completely blown," Elliot adds ruefully. "So I sincerely doubt we'll be able to apprehend anybody here or- not that we would," he adds quickly, seeing the looks everyone else's faces. "But if we wanted to we couldn't. Not that we want to. We don't want to. We came here to look- well, to be honest, Miss Ripley, we came here looking for whoever it was that kidnapped you in the first place, all those years ago."

"I already told them that," Grayson says quietly.

"Well, nobody told her that," Elliot replies in a stage whisper. Ripley clears her throat.

"Um," she says, taking another breath. "Wow, uh, first, can I say, uh, thanks for... for thinking of me." She raises her hands, starts to make a gesture but stops, unsure of what it was she wanted to do. "I... I thought you died. I figured you'd be dead or lost forever or- or-" She waves her hands. "And you're from here? You're from the same Earth as me?"

"Yeah, apparently," Grayson says, giving her a tiny smile.

"John?" she asks, after a moment, and his smile fades.

"John Savage is assumed killed in action at this time," he says apologetically. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," she mutters, and he perks up, dipping a hand into his pocket.

"I have pictures though," he says brightly, glancing over at Ford for a second to make sure he's allowed to move before coming closer. "You might like to see these, they were taken before his performance review just a few weeks before, ah, before you met." He pulls out a smart-phone, one of those nifty-looking little touchscreen numbers Ripley's seen at the mall, and pulls up a grainy color photo of a dark skinned man in a perfect uniform, visibly fighting the urge to smile at the person in motion to his left.

"That's John!" Ripley says excitedly, cradling the phone in her hands. "Ford! Come'ere!"

"Don't, uh, don't look at anything else, it's classified," Grayson says apologetically.

"You put classified information on your personal phone?" Ginger asks, scandalized. "Dad, what the hell, man."

"Don't take that tone, Ginger," Elliot says, although he's also frowning and peering over at Grayson. Ford comes over and puts a hand on Ripley's shoulder, glancing down at the picture.

"Wait, so you're... not all... these aren't your like, children, actual, kids?" Ripley asks slowly, tearing her eyes away from a face she hasn't seen in over eighteen years.

"Well I-" Grayson says, flustered. "We- well, I-I suppose, if you're going to be technical, but, uh-"

"He's a father to his men," Elliot says, puffing his chest out and giving Grayson a proud, fond smile. All three of their younger counterparts clear their throats, and he straightens up. "Agents. He's a father to his agents."

"I mean, yeah, strike team commanders, dads, it's basically the same thing," Tango says grudgingly, and Ripley grins despite her somewhat fraying nerves.

"So... look, I know you guys have a really important job to do, but we promise we're not doing anything naughty. Right, honey?" she prompts, nudging Ford.

"Uh," he says, and she turns to Fiddleford.

"Fiddsy, you're not doing anything scary or nothin', are you?"

"Well I gave arms to a Roomba!" he says, perking up. "And a steam cleaner capable of shearing a cinderblock in half, haha!"

"Haha, see, nothin'-" Ripley pauses, gauging the expressions on the faces of the Foundation personnel in the shop. "That's... we have some industrial cleaning needs here, this is a logging town," she explains hurriedly.

"Um," Angelface says.

"A Roomba is a little robot vacuum cleaner, we got it at the mall," she adds.

"We know what a Roomba is," Ginger says, nonplussed.

"Why don't you guys meet us up for pizza somewhere?" Ripley says quickly. "There's a pizza restaurant in the mall that has, like, robot beavers and video games for the kids, that'll be nice!"

"That's fer children birthday parties," Fiddleford says in a quiet tone.

"That's good, we'll bring all the children," she says.

"Yes, sure," Elliot says, smiling faintly.

"We're really going to some kind of small town Chuck E. Cheese ripoff with these anomalous scientists, Pop?" Tango hisses, and Elliot shrugs.

"Can I have my phone back?" Grayson asks, and Ripley holds it out to him, then, after a moment's thought, digs her own phone out of her pocket and passes it over to him.

"Put your phone number in and I can call you guys up," she says, and he smiles.

"We probably can't stay too long in town now that we know we're not on the right track for the person we're searching for," he says regretfully, "but I- I don't know if this makes any difference to you, ma'am, but I've been tryin' to see if there was any way to try to find you or... or your family, ever since we parted ways. I don't know if I can ever express to you how grateful I am to have had this chance to know that you got home okay."

"Haha, ditto," Ripley grins, tentatively patting him on the shoulder. "Maybe we can compare notes over pepperoni, huh?"

"Wait, so-" Angelface starts, then stops, blushing.

"Go ahead, Doreen," Elliot says, patting her back.

"So... can I still buy t-shirts?"

"I don't know how to use the cash register," Ripley admits, after a minute. "You wanna come back when we're staffed, you can get the good version of the tour and I'll bully Stan into givin' you the employee discount."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Later she will say that she should have known, that she knew the signs. Later _she_ will say that Ripley _did_ know, that she didn't want to admit that she'd gotten to where she missed their little talks but that she welcomed them all the same.

She misses Dimension 52. Maybe that's the problem. She misses being warm and safe; she misses regular meals and exercising just to keep in shape and not because she has to run or fight for her life. She misses the feeling that someone cares about and protects her, the feeling that someone is capable of protecting her. She hasn't trusted that someone could keep her out of harm's way since... ever. Ripley can barely draw together scraps of memory from her childhood that seem like they could be the same sort of feeling.

_reaching up for a thin hand, spidery fingers calloused and acid-stained; being held on a lap that smells like cigarette smoke, humming the Clash like it's a lullabye; waiting, waiting, waiting forever, a faith that is rewarded less and less_

These memories aren't... nice. They aren't comforting. They gnaw, and Ripley pushes them aside for now.

The girl is a teenager, maybe half Ripley's age, and the dimension they're in is largely populated by humans, astonishingly enough. Her hair's loose around her face and her delicate wrists and ankles are bloodied; that's what Ripley notices first, a disheveled child in pain. The room is all smoothly lacquered yellow, latticed with slim inlaid lines and shapes in this world's native, nearly-black wood. It makes Ripley nervous. The world isn't one of Bill's- not overtly, anyway- but his reach is wide and he's not known for subtlety.

She'd come looking for transport; the nearest natural portal is a continent away and she doesn't want to linger. The dockside bar is eerily quiet, and she knows as soon as she sees the hunched, shivering girl that she's not going to be hiring anyone here.

"What's going on?" she asks, and the girl's eyes are big and wet and pleading.

"None of your business, outsider," a man spits, and it's too dark for Ripley to see the color of his eyes, just that they're narrowed and that his mouth is twisted in a sneer. Later she will wrack her brain and realize that it was just dark enough to keep her from seeing the color of his eyes, from seeing the color of anyone's eyes. They're all green- not the soft mostly-gray green of Ripley's eyes, not the mossy green of her battered overcoat, but the lurid bile-green of sickness and infection. She will not notice this until it's far too late.

"Let the kid go," she says, eyeing the crowd. It's not too bad; seven patrons plus a bartender who's serenely wiping at a glass. Assuming nobody's got a gun or a blaster or anything, which is a shitty assumption to make in a place like this. She could just about take the lot if everybody was armed with blunt objects, she thinks glumly, even as she rolls Sparky into her palm and lets her grip warm the smooth metal.

"Sure," a woman in a cowl says, with a harsh chuckle. "We'll let the kid go if you take her place, how about that."

"Well, with an offer like that, I'm just so _tempted_ ," Ripley says sarcastically, igniting Sparky's blade and washing the room in harsh teal-white light. "Here's another option: let the kid go and nobody dies, how's that sound?"

"It sounds like we've been expecting you, One Sword," the woman says, lowering her hood. The first thing that Ripley notices is that the lower half of her face is shiny and red, and at first she thinks the woman is wearing some sort of weird mask. The second thing she notices is that it's not a mask. Her stomach lurches and she feels faint, even though there's nothing to throw up. "There's quite a bounty on your head now. You must have angered some very important people."

"You've got me mistaken for someone else," Ripley says firmly, head held high as she pulls a canteen out of her pack and takes a small sip. "I've never made anyone angry in my life, ever."

"No, you're the one we want," the woman purrs, walking over and laying a hand on the girl's head. "Tall for a human, yellow hair, spectacles, a scar," she draws a line down her face, mirroring the scar Ripley's had for as long as she can remember, "carrying a plasma sword. Easily baited if you use a child. Sounds like you, One Sword."

"Well," Ripley says slowly. "That. Might sound like me." She lowers Sparky a couple of inches, and takes a step closer. "What else you got, Gorgeous?"

"I've got a knife against her jugular," the woman says smugly.

"Yeah, see, a dead kid isn't gonna get me to come quietly," Ripley says, frowning. "You keep that knife to her throat like that and your buddies here are gonna be cut in half on my way out the door. Sorry."

"How noble," the man from earlier sneers. "We were told you fancied yourself some sort of _hero_."

"Now that _really_ doesn't sound like me," Ripley says with a forced little chuckle. "Look, gal, you put the knife away if you want us to talk. I'm not responsible for what you do to the kid if you don't."

The woman raises both hands, the knife's blade flashing in Sparky's light, and Ripley throws the canteen into her mouth with a sickening crunch of destroyed teeth. It's half a second to cross the distance between them; it's another second to separate the woman's heavily scarred head from her shoulders. The girl whimpers and ducks, a second too late to avoid the spray of chipped teeth and blood, and Ripley turns and gives the room a savage (haha) grin. She reminds herself to laugh about it later.

She's so used to the smell of cooked meat and burnt hair and cloth and leather that she doesn't feel sick at the smell of the woman's corpse on the floor.

"Who else wants some?" she asks pleasantly.

"Ohhh, Ripley," the man breathes out, stepping into the light, and Ripley finally notices his eyes. "That was _magnificent_. You never fail to excite me." He presses the barrel of a blaster under his chin and pulls the trigger; the laser evaporates most of his head. Ripley stares, shocked, and her skin crawls as she puts two and two together.

"Y-you...?"

"Just when I thought you might be getting tired of our little games," a pair of cloaked humans chime in unison, stepping far too close for Ripley's comfort. "How do you do it, One Sword? How do you always know exactly what to say to set the mood?"

"Back off," Ripley says warningly, and the bartender laughs as the pair of humans turn to one another and stab each other in the chest.

"Darling," the bartender coos, their teeth bared in something that only resembles a smile in the vaguest of ways. "You could have ended this at any time. Where would you like to have me? On the table? On the counter, covered in this human's blood?" They smash a pint glass against the bar and ram a fistful of broken glass into their throat with a gurgle, slumping forward.

"No, no," Ripley breathes out, slashing the girl's restraints away and hefting her one-armed up against her hip. She's very light, Ripley will remember later. "No, okay, no, no, no, this is not going to happen, okay, fuck off-" She holds the sword's blade out like a ward against the remaining three patrons, each of them giving her a smile that makes her want to scrub her own skin off. "You're gonna let us go, Tasha, because I'm not- I'm not playing with you today, okay-"

"You'll stop playing when I _say_ you do," the burly woman with a robotic leg says, licking her lips.

"Let us go," Ripley says softly, and the girl against her side is shaking with terror. "Let us go. Let me... let me get this girl to safety, Tasha, please, I'm begging you. Let her go and I'll- I'll- you want something, okay, that's- we can work with that, Tasha, just please, please-"

"Do you really call that begging?" a slim, scarred man with a nose ring queries. He doesn't look much older than the girl, Ripley thinks, her breath hitching in her chest. "You'll have to do better than _that_."

"I'm serious, Tasha," Ripley says, backing up in the direction of the door. "Y-you don't want me to kill any more of your toys-"

"But I have so many and I do so love how you kill them, especially when they are freed only for that split second before you murder the poor dears," sighs the lady with the cyborg leg, and Ripley bites her lower lip so hard she tastes blood. The woman being worn like a meatsuit sighs, giving a tiny smile. "Oh... how can I resist that _face_? You have a ten minute head start, my love."

Ripley doesn't wait to see if she's just playing with her- she hoists the girl up and barrels through the doors, running despite the screaming twinges in her knees, the girl's weight slowing her down despite how little it is. She sees an abandoned storefront and ducks into the alleyway next to it; sure enough, there's a door leading to the inside of the building and the door is not strong enough to withstand being kicked in by a desperate Ripley. She deposits the girl in a back room and turns to face the way she came, breathing hard.

"Okay... okay... it's gonna be okay, kid," she says, leaning heavily against the doorframe. "What, uh... what's your name, kid?"

"Goanna," the girl sniffles, wiping her nose. Ripley nods, trying a smile as she reaches over and brushes the hair out of Goanna's face, tying it back in a loose ponytail.

"It's gonna be okay, Goanna," she repeats. "Find a place to hide, okay? I'll draw'em off. Don't worry, I won't let them hurt you, okay?"

"Okay, Miss Ripley," the girl says, edging a little closer. "Miss Ripley?"

"Yeah, sugar?" Ripley asks distractedly.

"Your ten minutes are over," she says. Ripley has time to turn around before the girl's on her, a tiny knife- the twin of the knife that had been against her throat in the bar- in her hand. Ripley brings her arm up and the blade buries itself in it, and the girl smiles widely and twists. Ripley drops Sparky with a cry, her free hand grabbing the girl by the throat. The girl makes eye contact- just brown, not the sickly green of Natashoggoth's puppets- and opens her mouth, dragging her tongue over the wound, lapping up the blood and nudging the knifehandle a little.

Ripley shoves her off in revulsion and horror, scrabbling for Sparky and lighting. "Get away," she pants.

"We'll meet again," the girl promises, her mouth violently red, entirely human, entirely herself, no echo of demonic voices in her words, no shadow of demonic influence in her eyes.

Ripley cuts a hole in space and time and flees to the nearest dimension. She is in a dark hillside thicket. She turns Sparky off and collapses to the ground, biting back a sob as she grabs the knife sticking out of her forearm and throws it as far as she can. She tells herself : I need to end this. I need to kill her for good.

It's a few more months before she meets Hyde, god-killer, and his friend Rick of Dimension B-11&.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ford heads downstairs after the group of Ripley's... friends? After the group leaves. Ripley was right in that he wasn't intentionally doing anything "naughty," but if this... league of scientists has tech capable of picking up the energy from the portal, Ford realizes, he could be unintentionally drawing all kinds of unwanted attention to the town and to the house in particular. He has to be careful, else the portal could destabilize and create an actual rift in the fabric of time and space.

That would be... less than ideal.

After a few (mostly fruitless) hours, he comes back upstairs, mostly because he's starting to feel a little hungry and it's unlike his family to leave him in relative peace for that long.

Stan and the kids still aren't back yet, but he finds Ripley and Fiddleford in Fiddleford's room, listening to something on Ford's old record player. Ripley's back in her pajamas, a glazed expression on her face and Fiddleford's head in her lap. One hand's resting on his chest, which is moving just a little as he snores gently, and the other arm is up on the back of the couch.

 _We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when_ , a gravel-voiced man sings, and Ford finds himself frowning at it for a moment.

"Johnny Cash," Ripley says softly, and Ford nods, seating himself against her side. "The last album before he died."

"I hadn't realized Johnny Cash died," he admits, and she sighs, curling her arm around his shoulders. "How long have you been sitting here like this, Ripley?"

"Dunno," she says, and he turns to look at her, because there's something wrong. She sighs heavily. "Ford- Ford, I... I been scared to talk to you about this and I know it's stupid but I have to, okay."

"I'm sure it's not stupid," he says seriously.

"I'm turning into a monster." She presses her mouth shut, apparently thinking it over. "She... Natashoggoth. She did something to me. She's... infected me. There's something wrong with me. Okay?"

"Okay," he says tentatively, and puts his arm around her waist. "Well. Sweetheart, I-"

"No," she says sharply, giving him an unhappy look. "You're not _listening_ to me, Ford, I'm dangerous. I'm _wrong_. I'm- I'm not normal, okay, I'm not right, I'm turning into a monster. I'm not figuratively turning into a monster. I'm not emotionally turning into a monster. My body, physically, is changing, into a monster, into a, a demon or whatever it was she was, okay? I didn't- I didn't know for a long time and I didn't know how to tell you and I thought I could fix it and I can't, okay, I can't do _anything_ and I'm just putting everybody in danger and the more people who know us the more people that are in danger and I should probably, I don't know, I-"

"Sweetheart," Ford tries again, and Fiddleford is stirring and sitting up, and she's shaking against Ford's body and her shoulders are tense and she won't look at him. "Ripley, let's think about this for a minute, okay?"

"Okay? _Okay?_ I'm- I'm- I could kill somebody-" she says thickly, and he leans his forehead against the side of her head.

"Ripley, I've already tested your DNA since I've been back," he tells her seriously. "You're human. You know? You come back fully human, fully of this dimension. You don't register as anything... incorrect, honey."

"She's hiding it, she's just _hiding_ ," she says, and he shushes her gently.

"You said she infected you," he prompts, and she nods. "How?"

"She put her tongue in my mouth," she says miserably, and he swallows drily.

"Well. I. Regret that I cannot kill her," he says haltingly, and Fiddleford makes a soft noise in agreement from the side. "But... Ripley, I understand that you feel bad, I know you do, but it's-"

"You don't believe me," Ripley says slowly.

"It's not that I don't believe you," Ford says quickly. "I do. I believe she did that to you, I believe that she... hurt you, honey, she hurt you so fucking much, I know she did, I-" Ford adjusts his glasses. "I merely want to reassure you. Whatever else is occurring, you are, in fact, genetically human. If there's some sort of... illness, some kind of infection at play here, then... then we can figure out a way to deal with it."

"Ford?" Fiddleford asks tentatively, wringing his hands. "We, ah. Me an' Stan've seen this... thing at work. It ain't in 'er head, if that's... if that's what yer worried about. There's... been..."

Ford blinks, and Ripley hangs her head, still not looking at him.

"Sometimes I have extra eyes and mouths and stuff," she mutters. "I'm turning into her more and more."

"Extra eyes," he repeats. "Fiddleford, you... you've seen Ripley spontaneously sprout extra orifices?"

"Uh, well, I've... sort of seen it," Fiddleford says helplessly. "I-I mean, Stanley's seen it way more than I have-"

"Stan's also witnessed this?" Ford asks finally.

"Somewhat," Ripley says, and when she looks over at him Ford's frowning deeply. "Look, I-"

"Do you mean to tell me that the three of you were all engaged in _deceiving_ me about your health and wellbeing, Ripley?" he asks finally, and Ripley's heart drops.

"Uh, when ya put it that way," Fiddleford says, giving a thin, nervous laugh.

"This is my fault," Ripley says quickly, standing and moving to the other side of the room, her hands raised. "Look, Ford, this is... absolutely, one hundred percent my fault. I asked them not to tell you, okay? I'm sorry, I-"

"Does it not- does it not occur to you that I would need or _deserve_ to know if you're sick, Ripley?" Ford asks sharply, his face and ears going warm. "What if you- for goodness sake, Ripley, what if you'd _died_ of whatever this is-"

"I'm not _dying_ , Ford," Ripley snaps, her body tensing across the room at him. The record ends, and the low, scratchy noise of the needle running aimlessly over the vinyl fills the room.

"Fellas, try to- try to keep it down to a simmer, okay?" Fiddleford asks, wringing his hands. "Everybody, let's jist- let's calm down."

"I am calm," Ford tells him, scowling. "I'm perfectly calm! You seem to think it's perfectly _acceptable_ to mislead me about whether or not she's gravely ill, so why shouldn't I be _calm_?"

"Don't yell at him," Ripley says, her hands tightening into fists at her sides. "You know what, this is half of the reason I didn't want you to find out, _Ford_ , if there was even a chance that I could fix this shit on my own I didn't want them to tell you, so don't you fucking yell at him-"

"I'm not yelling at Fiddleford!" Ford says, bristling. "But please, pray, go on! What is the reason you kept this from me? I could have- I could have done something!"

"Oh, like that ain't a steaming pile'a horseshit!" Ripley snarls. "Like you weren't busy shutting the portal down, huh? Like you would have put saving the world on hold for something insignificant like my health or something!"

"That's not- that isn't fair and you know it," Ford hisses. "You didn't give me the option-"

"Like we don't know already," Ripley spits. "Gee, Ford, maybe I realized I couldn't tell you until I knew for sure you actually really believed it was me, huh?"

"Ripley," Ford starts.

"You put a _gun to my head_ , Ford, you would have _shot_ me if I hadn't been wearing our stone," she growls, reaching into her shirt and yanking the pendant off with a tiny snap. "Well here you go, Fordsy, you don't have to act like you know it's me, okay? Now you have the benefit of the fucking doubt, now you don't _know_ it's me, so if something happens it's not on you, okay!"

"Ripley, stop it," Ford says, his voice wavering. "Stop this immediately, it's unbecoming and-"

"Unbecoming!" Ripley parrots back, and Ford has no idea why this is so bad, they haven't fought like this in- well, years, technically, but before they'd parted they'd gone over two years without so much as raising their voices at one another, he doesn't understand why she's angry or why she's angry at him for being angry. "You should be glad, Ford, your first instinct was right! You shoulda shot me, congratu-fucking-lations!"

Ripley storms out of the room, and Ford spares Fiddleford a glance- backed into a corner, looking just as upset as Ford feels, muttering into someone's cellular phone, "How soon can ya git here?"- and follows Ripley into the hallway.

"Ripley, I-"

 _"Leave me **alone**!"_ she screams, and puts her fist through the wall next to their bedroom door with a shower of splinters. Ford jumps, his hand going to his sidearm, and she pulls her fist to her chest with a sob. She pulls the door open and he lets her, staring at the hole in the solid wood of the wall before he tentatively looks inside.

"Ripley," Ford says, eyes wide. She's shoving things into her backpack, the star sapphire pendant is on the dresser. "Don't- where are you going?"

_i just got you back, i can't lose you again_

"I shouldn't have stayed here," she says, and she's crying, and _why_ she's crying Ford doesn't know, but he hasn't felt this bad since-

_just let me protect you -no, ford, **no** \- i will find you_

"Stay," he's saying, reaching for her shoulder. "Ripley? Stay."

Her whole body shudders under his hand, and for a moment he's sure that she'll listen, that she'll stay, that she'll figure out what to do with him, that they'll figure this out together-

-she pulls away, brushing past him out the door. "You're in danger, you're all in danger with me around."

"Come back," he says numbly, and she takes a deep, shaky breath, raking a hand through her hair.

"Where's my phone?" she demands, and Fiddleford hands it over. She pockets it with a soft mumbled thanks and leaves.

"Where d'you think yer goin'?" Fiddleford asks sharply, following her out the door, and she doesn't answer. Ford goes back to their bedroom and picks the star sapphire up off the dresser and stares at it; faintly, it picks up his own pulse from the palm of his hand.

He hears the car engine roar to life and fade away.

Fiddleford comes back, a fire in his eyes, and grabs Ford by the arm.

"Let's go."


	4. Guitar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter opens up with a flashback to a sexual assault in the mindscape and possible sexual assault in reality. Violence/Gore and self-harm tags for Ripley during a psychotic episode. Ableist language tag is regarding a conversation between Ford and Ripley about this.

His lips are on her neck; it's the weird tickle and the pressure and the weight of him over her that wakes her up.

"Ford?" Ripley asks blearily, and he shushes her gently, carding his fingers through her hair. "Ford, what- what're you-"

"We're safe," he murmurs, nibbling the skin under her ear. She shivers and grimaces, confused, and gently pushes him off.

"What? No we ain't," she says, dipping into a Southernism that she knows he can't stand. "We ain't been safe since... since-"

"Oh, so you're the expert now, is that it?" he asks, and takes her hips in his hands and squeezes hard enough that she thinks he's going to leave five little bruises, ignoring the soft hiss of pain as she tries to wriggle away again. "When I say we're safe I mean we're-"

"Bounty hunters," she interrupts, frowning. Something is wrong. He's fever-hot and pressing flush against her, and his teeth are biting down into her shoulder, breaking the skin before sucking on the bite. "Ford, get _off_ of me, there are bounty hunters here, that's why we're hiding, you're acting fucking weird-"

"You're _safe_ ," he growls, his head down, his hips rolling against her with an impatient snappy movement. "I _said_ you're safe, I _made_ you safe, so just _accept_ this-"

Ripley's brow furrows and she opens her mouth to tell Ford to get off before he gets kicked off-

-five bruises. For five fingers.

The star sapphire on her chest is motionless.

"This- this isn't real," she says, and the thing that looks and smells and sounds like Ford almost snarls, dragging its tongue against the side of her neck. Ford's gone. Ford's been gone for more than a year, left on the other side of a portal forty feet up from the forest floor. Ripley exhales with a shudder, scrabbling for her sword or a knife or her gun or something-

"You just don't _want_ to be happy," he says, and for a moment she's staring into Ford's face, his warm brown eyes, and then there's heat and wetness and his face starts sagging, the skin swelling and splitting open. Ripley shrieks and starts frantically trying to back away, and the thing- a corpse now, bloated and still-Ford but quite clearly dead- tangles its hands in her clothing, dragging her back. "Is that it, Ripley? You just don't want to be happy? You don't _like_ it when people do something _nice_ for you?"

"Get away, get away," she pants, shoving at its arms and almost wailing when her hands succeed only in tearing huge chunks of it off, the blood-covered bones still firmly in place. "Oh god, oh god, this- this- this isn't real, it can't be real, this isn't real-"

“It’s real,” it says- just a skeleton, mostly, coated in gore and redness and with chunks of hair still clinging to its skull and a long, sagging tongue hanging from its mouth. The eyes are gone but, obscenely, it’s still wearing his glasses, even without ears or a nose to keep them in place. “It’s real.”

“No, no, okay- a dream, this is a dream, this didn’t happen and it’s not real and it can’t happen,” Ripley says quickly, and the skeleton coalesces into a green-brown-black mass of features that Ripley’s already gotten used to seeing in her dreams. She puts her head in her hands and the dirty shack wedged in an alleyway is gone, the alleyway is gone, it’s just her and her sea of mint clouds and suspended in midair before her, a grinning Natashoggoth.

“You didn’t catch on so quickly this time, One Sword,” she titters, and Ripley makes a soft, small sound, turning away. “Do you wonder why that is?”

“Go away,” Ripley breathes out, and the demon laughs. “This is just you being stupid. This is just a stupid dream.”

“It wasn’t _all_ a stupid dream,” Natashoggoth purrs, wrapping a thick tongue coated in ropy saliva around Ripley’s throat, leaning against her back as one of her other mouths starts talking. Hands snake around Ripley’s front, digging sharply into her chest as they squeeze harshly. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Go away,” Ripley mutters, feeling sick. “Go away, for fuck’s sake, I’m never joining you, the answer is still and always no, get the fuck-”

“You’re not awake yet because I am not allowing you to be,” the demon says, and Ripley pauses, swallowing tightly.

“That’s a lie and I’m waking up and goodbye, Nat, hopefully forever,” she says, and fails to wake up.

“Stop,” Ripley says, quietly first, then shutting her eyes and screaming as loudly as her mindscape can allow. “ **Stop it.** ”

Ripley opens her eyes and there’s something heavy in her lap and there’s something wet on her neck. At first she doesn’t know she’s awake; she keeps _trying_ to wake up, but her body hurts in random places and the shack wedged into this alleyway is dirty and it smells bad. She cautiously raises herself up and claps her hands over her mouth, because the thing in her lap is a man’s head, flies buzzing away from his eyes and mouth as she jostles it. Her first reaction is to kick out as hard as she can, sending the body flying across the single room. She realizes that she’s wearing what must be his clothing- unfamiliar, too big- at the same moment that she realizes that his body is nude.

She can’t scream. There are bounty hunters everywhere; this man, she thinks faintly, is one of them. She recognizes him from a near scrape a couple of days ago. _He tried to kill you,_ she reminds herself, _he wanted to kill you._

_you’re welcome, by the way_

His mouth is red- not just puffy-swollen-bitten, but coated in bright crimson. At first she thinks it’s from whatever killed him, until she sees the needle dangling from his stiffened fingers- a tranquilizer, she thinks, and when she looks she can see the injection site, just over his heart.

She puts shaking fingers to the side of her neck, where ~~Ford~~ Natashoggoth bit her, and the skin feels raw and tender, and her fingertips come away bloody.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Ripleymobile stops suddenly; she's not sure why she's here, specifically. She just doesn't want to be around anybody she cares about. She gets out of the car and kicks a nearby stump; it lacks a certain satisfying quality so she doesn't do it again.

The woods are quiet around the car; already she's twitchy and jumpy and ready to make any sounds to fill in the huge empty silence pressing down on her. She edges towards the cliff face- one half of Gravity Falls' supposedly-famous hanging cliffs- and sits carefully down, hanging her feet over the edge and staring down at the town below.

_you just don't want to be happy_

She leans back, her feet still dangling over the edge, and folds her hands over her stomach, watching the sky go from dark blue to red-orange to nearly purple. The stars come out, although clouds skid across the sky a few times, and she thinks about all the night skies she's seen over the years.

At some point, mosquitoes start to bother her, so she sits up and thinks about driving ~~home~~ to the Shack. Stan and the kids might be home, and that's always good for taking her out of the weird, unhappy place she keeps finding herself in lately.

It's been a little over four months since she killed the only thing that's been a constant in her life for the last three and a half years since she first lost Ford.

Ripley gives herself a shake. You're not supposed to be sad that you killed the demon who's been trying to ruin your life. She doesn't _deserve_ it. _You_ don't deserve it.

Ripley twirls her keys on her finger as she heads around back to the trunk of her car. If the cleansing ritual doesn't work, then, well, it doesn't work. She probably ought to have written down the instructions more clearly, because she just has seven question marks next to _patchouli oil_ and she's not sure if this is a "drinking" or "smearing" situation, but she's going to try both. She also realizes, while opening the shopping bag full of supplies, that some of this stuff requires burning and smudging and smoking and she's ten miles away from the nearest lighter, probably. The silver knife is... hmm.

Ripley tests the edge with her thumb, frowning. She's positive that if she's supposed to be using this thing for chopping up herbs and whatnot that it ought to be at least a little sharper- she _can_ cut herself on it but she really has to try; it feels like she's bruising the pad of her thumb before blood starts running. Ripley frowns and sticks her thumb in her mouth, wiping the blade on her pants. Well, it can't be helped. As for the lighter, well, maybe a plasma sword can work well enough just to light things on fire, unless there's some sort of "magic rules" that need to be followed using actual fire.

Although-

Ripley stares down at the supplies dangling from one hand, frowning slightly. No way a two-dollar Bic from the gas station is more spiritually significant than the portal sword she's been using and maintaining and carrying with her for a decade, right? Sparky should be the best damn magical lighter anybody ever heard of.

"Write that one in the Journal," she says hoarsely, and laughs at her own joke. She's aware of the rushing of her blood through her own ears, the thud of every pulse as it gushes through the arteries in her throat. This doesn't seem like a good development, but it might just be that she's tired- she is- and stressed after a long bad day- she is- and hungry- wow is she ever - actually she's _so_ hungry, like... like she could just-

_i could just eat you up_

-Ripley drops the supplies and they tumble to the pine needle-matted ground, rolling under the Ripleymobile. She grabs for them but all she can reach is the knife and the glass bottle of patchouli oil. She contemplates the effort of moving the car, hoping not to run anything over, and then gathering everything back up... she also contemplates just chugging the oil and seeing where that takes her.

That's a bad idea, she thinks primly. It's almost enough to make her spin the cap off and start chugging.

Her phone rings. She looks at it, and doesn't recognize the number, but she answers anyway.

"Yullo?" she tries.

"Hey darlin'," Fiddleford says on the other line, and she blinks.

"Fidds, when you got a phone?" she asks, and he cackles a little.

"It ain't a phone, I built this lil' trackin' device thingamabobber outta two a'dem eye-phones and a box of scrap solder!"

"Wow," she says, blinking. "So... if it's not a phone how are you talking to me, then?"

"I-I mean it's also a phone," he says, then, as if he's not even speaking to her, "within a hundred yard radius of here. Come on."

"Fiddsy," Ripley says slowly, "are you, uh, are you looking for me right now?"

"Uh, well-"

"Fidds, I'm just at the South Cliffs overlook," she says, sighing. "You're not coming here, are you? I'm probably going to head back home any minute, I'm just... I'm just thinkin' real slow like I always do, man. You don't... you didn't shoulda come."

"Not ta rain on yer little isolation parade, but I'm probably gonna have a heart attack if I gotta walk all the way back to the house," he says firmly, and he's too old for Ripley to really challenge that statement. "We're gonna need a ride back."

"We?" Ripley asks, sighing. She closes her eyes and her head aches terribly, she can see the dark circles and the fine-lined wrinkles forming under her eyes from all this stress, and-

-Ripley opens her eyes, feeling dizzy. She lowers her phone, Fiddleford's voice tinny and insistent and very far away. She blinks.

Her arm blinks back at her.

"Mmmm," she says out loud, and a frantic little laugh bubbles up out of her. "Okay, okay, that's- just- that's..."

It's okay. It's okay.

Her hand tightens around the knife handle. Surely 'magic ritual' isn't the best idea she's ever had to try to get rid of whatever it is Tasha did to her.

Magic has always been a bit of an inexact art. _That's_ always been another word for _bullshit_.

"Gordian knot," Ripley says quietly, and that terrified little laugh finds its way out of her again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Fiddleford sees her first, which is why he suddenly staggers in place and sags against Ford's side. Ford spots the blue car, and then the blond figure curled up against the back wheel well.

"Ripley, stop," Ford cries out, and she does not. The knife is buried up to the hilt, and then she slowly pulls it out with a slight sawing motion. She lets out a soft whining noise that turns into a soft chuckle; he's there before the knife can come down again, one hand wrapped around her wrist, the other hand applying pressure to her forearm. "Ripley, stop. You _must_  stop."

"It's a pun," she murmurs, her forehead dropping to lean against his shoulder. "S'a visual pun."

"What?" he asks, glancing back at Fiddleford, who's looking positively green around the gills. "There's- there's got to be something in the car we can use, a first aid kit, an old shirt, something-"

"Excise," she mumbles, waggling the knife still clutched in her hand. "Exorcise," she adds, trying to pull her arm away.

"That is _not_ a visual pun," he says sternly, and she giggles. "Ripley, what- what were you _thinking_ , you knucklehead, you could have-"

"Happened," she says simply, rolling her head back to look at him as he manhandles her arm higher, trying to elevate it. "Happened again. She comin' out of me. Eyes. I've..." She trails off, and Ford gives her a tiny shake, desperate to keep her talking. "F-fuckin' rude..."

" _You're_ rude," he snaps, before glancing back at Fiddleford. "Anything?"

"Jacket," Fiddleford offers, pulling one of Ripley's thin zip-ups. Ford struggles to wrap it around her hurt arm one-handed; it's more difficult than it ought to be because she's trying to pull away from him.

"This would be a lot easier on both of us if you'd just lie down and _be still_ ," he barks, and she freezes, eyes unfocusing slightly.

"S-sorry," she says quietly, and when he puts pressure against her to make her lay down she does it automatically, compliant, like-

Ford doesn't know what it's like.

He wrenches the knife out of her hand and inspects it quickly- doesn't seem to be coated with poison or covered in mystic runes, just- just a knife covered in his wife's blood. He throws it into the woods.

"Hey darlin'," Fiddleford says, putting his hands on her shoulders to keep her still as Ford uses a penlight to check the stab wounds for any... debris. "Y-you're givin' us a fright with all this... you know?"

"I'm not," she murmurs, closing her eyes. "I had to cut the eyes out, F-Fidds. They're... they're all over, I gotta... I gotta cut'em out."

Ford falters just a little as he wraps her arm carefully. His hands are trembling, but only just. He's had to dress his own wounds before, some of them worse than this, so there... there isn't any reason why his hands should be shaking this much. There's just a moment or two of silence before Fiddleford speaks.

"Y'know how sometimes I gotta have you or Stan tell me if somethin's real?" he asks delicately. She doesn't speak in response, just makes a muffled little _mmmph_ sound at him, and he continues. "Sometimes, maybe, me or Stan'd be the ones to tell ya if what yer seein' ain't real, too, right? Th-that's somethin' we can do for each other, right?"

"Mm," she says agreeably, flashing Fiddleford a dopey smile.

"Ya trust me'n Stanford, don'cha?" he asks carefully.

"Mmhmm. Yeah. Yeah, I love you," she says blearily.

"Uh huh. An' we love ya too." Fiddleford squeezes her shoulders a little. "Yanno there ain't no eyes on yer arms, Ripley."

"I got'em. Most ovvem're gone. I just... just a couple more an' she'll be gone," she says proudly. Ford's stomach lurches at something in her tone.

"No, sugar," Fiddleford says gently. "There ain't no eyes on yer arms. Ya got cut up pretty bad, but there weren't nothin' there but skin."

She's quiet for a few moments, and Ford chances a look at her face. Her expression makes him wish he hadn't.

"We need to treat these wounds," Ford says, meeting Fiddleford's eyes. "We can... we can discuss everything else later."

"Keys in yer pocket?" Fiddleford asks her, and she gestures mutely at her keyring, a little ways away, on the ground near where she'd dropped her phone. "Think you c'n sit tight in the back with Ford while I drive?"

"Mmhh," she grunts, eyes shut, mouth pressed into an unhappy line.

"We're going to get up now," Ford tells her, and when he moves her she lets him. He gives up trying to buckle her in, wrapping both arms around her and pinning her forearms to her chest as gently as possible.

"We'll just clean your arm up and put a dressing on it when we get home," he murmurs. "Just... talk to me, Ripley, alright? Keep talking so I know you're alright. You took your necklace off so I can't feel your pulse, you know."

"Sometimes," she says drowsily, "sometimes I tell people my brother got eaten by wolves on the Connecticut turnpike."

 _"Why?"_ Fiddleford asks from the front seat in a mystified tone, his knuckles white on her steering wheel.

"They don't got wolves in Connecticut," she huffs, sniffing a little.

"...oh," Ford says, tightening his grip around her, and she lets out a soft, keening moan.

"Let me go," she pleads.

"No, Ripley," Ford sighs, pressing his face against the side of her head. "I won't."

"I don' unnerstand," she whines softly. "What do you want? Do you- do you want me to _die_ , Tasha? Do you... is that-?"

" _No_ ," Ford says, before inhaling sharply. " _What_ did you say?"

"I'll do it," she mumbles. "I'll do it if it'll make you stop. Just... just tell me... just. Please. I-"

"She's not here," Ford says firmly, squeezing his eyes shut so tightly that for a moment he sees white. "She's gone. I assure you, she's not here anymore, Ripley, it's me. It's Stanford."

She doesn't say anything else the rest of the car ride back to the Shack. It's only when they're in the bathroom, using a saline solution to rinse her wounds, that she speaks, eyes riveted to the tile floor.

"Kids," she mutters.

"They're out of the house," Ford tells her, dabbing antibiotic ointment into each of the four stab wounds. "Stan mentioned something about breaking into the golf course with Soos and the twins for an illicit midnight golf competition."

"Of course he did," she sighs, and Ford looks up, hoping she's a little more herself, but her face is still unreadable.

"What was its name?" he asks, unwrapping a sterile gauze pad and pressing against her arm. "That... thing. What was its name?"

Ripley goes silent for a moment or two.

"I mean, that's... kind of a vague-" she starts.

"Don't pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about. The deception is beneath both of us." He spots her giving him a sharp glare, but by the time he looks back up she's turned away again.

"Her name's Natashoggoth," she mutters. "The Ever-Voracious. Our Lady of Eternal Devouring."

" _It's_ name _was_ Natashoggoth," he corrects, and she sighs.

"Jesus, Ford. You know what I meant," she says.

"I don't know what you meant," he says, taping her arm up. "You seem to be under the delusion that, perhaps, it's not dead, or that it's somehow still tormenting you, or-"

"Shut up," she mutters. "You know what? Shut the fuck up, Ford-"

"You _said_ you killed it and I believed you, so perhaps we should revisit that, _darlin_ g, because-"

"-what, what, like- like you're one to fucking talk? Fuck you, I'm not _crazy_ ," she snarls, exhaustion written in every line.

"I didn't say you were crazy, Ripley," he snaps. "Did I actually say that-"

"Oh, okay, _delusional_ , I'm sorry I didn't have my fuckin' thesarus on me, _Professor_."

"Delusional doesn't mean crazy," he starts, and- okay, he has no interest whatsoever in rehashing their fight from earlier, the one thing he never missed was the way they both could go for blood when hurt or scared, but at least- at least it's almost normal, at least _she's_ almost normal.

"It does and you fuckin' know it," she sighs, and just like that all the fight drains out of her. He stares at her, and she's a closed book, her mouth set in a pale, unhappy curve.

"I think Stan has some apple juice," he says, after a minute. "I'll... I'll bring you a glass. You should be in bed, you could faint and fall and hit your head, and then we'll have a head injury to deal with on top of all this."

"Sorry," she says flatly.

"We're still going to discuss... all of this," he tells her, helping her to her feet.

"What's there to discuss?" she mutters, and he sighs, walking her into their room.

"Do you need help getting that bloody shirt off?" he asks, and she exhales through her nose and takes it off herself. He grabs a looser shirt of hers from the top drawer; after a moment's thought he also grabs her huge green home-made sweater. She pulls them both on without a word, and he stands there, wringing his hands a little. "I'll, uh... I'll go get-" He pauses, flushing slightly. "Do I need Fiddleford to come in here while I go get your juice?"

"No," she says, tucking herself into bed. "If a chaos demon tries to take over my body I'll be sure to wait for you to see it _before_ I try to get rid of it."

"You're being asinine on purpose," he says, and she just puts her head back on the pillow and stares at the ceiling instead of responding. He has to let that be an okay-enough response; he has to be okay with leaving her alone in there for a few minutes. She sits up when he returns with a half-filled glass, giving the juice a supremely disinterested look but drinking it slowly anyway. He changes into a loose pair of sleep pants and one of her shirts, a newer-looking shirt with a band name on it that he vaguely remembers from before he went into the portal three decades ago. If she notices it, she doesn't smile like he thought she would.

He curls into her, burying his face against the back of her shoulder for a few minutes of silence.

"We could... we could watch _Clash of The Titans_ with Stan and the kids tomorrow after dinner," he suggests softly, drawing gentle circles in the soft bulge of her stomach. "I saw it in theaters with Fiddleford, you know. I think we could get our hands on some other Harryhausen movies, I know Stan loves that kind of thing."

"You should have shot me before you got attached," she replies. "You were right. You should have killed me when you got here."

"Stop being stupid, Savage," he says.

"You were right," she repeats listlessly. "I'm not me. I'm a thing pretending to be me. I'm a monster."

"Stop it. You're a thousand things, Ripley, you're the finest swordswoman I've ever met and you're far too much like Stanley and you're downright infuriating when you want to be and you're... you're you, Ripley. A monster or demon could never pretend to be you, it would be a pale imitation of you, lacking your nuance, lacking everything that I love," he says, and she sighs heavily.

"Yeah, you really believed that when you came in through the portal, didn't you?" she asks, and he grimaces.

"I've already apologized, Ripley, I wasn't in my right mind and I made a mistake," he grumbles. "I made a mistake and I was wrong _then_ , but I'm definitely, absolutely right _now_."

"She used to pretend to be _you_ in the mindscape, Ford, and sometimes I fell for it." She clears her throat. "She used to wear you in the mindscape and... and when she did sometimes I couldn't _tell_ that it wasn't you."

"That doesn't count, Ripley, we have previously agreed on multiple occasions that the mindscape doesn't count," he replies, and she sighs yet again, reaching for his hand with her uninjured left and lacing their fingers together. He's going to take this as a tentative win. "Goodnight, Ripley."

"Ford?" she asks quietly. "Could you... would you just, you know, talk for a while until I'm asleep? I just... I could stand to hear your voice, I, uh..."

"Of course," he says promptly, giving her a squeeze. "What do you want me to say?"

"I dunno. Anything she wouldn't have said," she mutters. He considers this for a moment.

"People Really Hate Eating Donuts and Cold Cider," he says, grammar-school mnemonic devices springing first to mind. "Twinkle, twinkle, little star; power equals I squared R." She snorts, and he smiles against her. "Kings Hate Dragons Because Dragons Can't Make Money. Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain. Men Very Easily Make Jugs Serve Useful Needs, Perhaps. Sober Physicists Don't Find Giraffes Hiding In Kitchens..."

She's asleep by the time he gets to, "Queen Elizabeth Second's Navy Commands, Controls, Communicates."

He stays awake until he hears Stan and the kids come back.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She sleeps through her self-defense lesson with the kids; she hears Mabel come to the door, and hears Ford tell her in a booming too-loud voice that he'll be teaching them a few tricks from his time in the multiverse before she's fully asleep again. At some point Stan comes in and shakes her shoulder and asks her if she's going to eat anything; she tells him to fuck off and he sighs and puts his hand on her forehead, like he's feeling for a fever. Ford comes back in, panting and sweating, and throws himself down on the bed next to her, mumbling that he doesn't know how she does this every morning. She says nothing, and eventually he falls asleep again, his cheek pressed against her shoulder.

At some point she wakes up alone and she's wearing the necklace again, the gentle thump of Ford's heartbeat next to hers. She lies and listens to the sounds of the mostly-empty house for a while, before putting the pillow over her ears and willing herself to go back to sleep.

At some point she wakes up because Fiddleford's coming in with a tray, and at least he looks as tired as she feels.

"What, d'ja lose a bet?" she asks, and he cracks a smile.

"Turns out Stan can play a mean game of rock, paper, scissors," he admits, setting the tray down. It has another glass of juice on it, along with a bowl of chicken soup and a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. The sandwich has been cut into four little triangles; there's a certain glittery quality to the tray that makes Ripley think Mabel had a hand in preparing this. Ripley stares down at the sandwich.

"I'm not eating that," she says quietly, and Fiddleford nods.

"Fair enough, fair enough. Soup's non-negotiable, though, doctor's orders. Speakin' a'which," he adds brightly, pulling some gauze and surgical tape from Ford's kit out of his pockets. "You oughter let me change that."

"Don't want to do that, either," she grumbles, and he waggles his eyebrows at her.

"Well, I didn't want you to change my bandages either, and ya still made me do it, gal," he says, and she guesses she can't argue with that logic. She shucks off her Mabel Sweater and he tsks a little as he gently turns her arm over. It bled through in one spot, but just a little, and the nickel-sized circle of reddish brown makes Ripley's stomach turn. She makes a face, and Fiddleford raises an eyebrow at her. "I've seen ya whallop a dinosaur in half, yer not gonna tell me a little blood's got ya all faintified, are ya?"

"I don't have to _like_ seeing my own blood," she argues, and he tsks again, gently unwrapping the old bandages off.

"S'gonna scar," he murmurs.

"Like anyone'd notice," she counters. He makes a face at her, and she goes quiet, slightly ashamed and not entirely sure why. He's about halfway done re-wrapping her arm when the door bursts open; they both jump at the noise, spilling a little soup onto the tray.

"Aunt Ripley, Mabel's trying to make me work on her stupid puppet show and I don't-" Dipper starts, then stops, eyes going round. "Aunt Ripley, did you run into another chupacabra?"

"A chupawhat-ah?" Fiddleford asks nervously.

"No, sweetie," she says slowly, scrubbing her free hand back through her hair. "Good thing, too, because chupacabras are poisonous! Venomous? Venomous, right, poisonous is only if you eat it," she adds.

"I-Is that why you weren't practicing with us today?" he asks, both hands worrying at his pocketed vest. "Great-Uncle Ford said you weren't feeling well."

"I wasn't feeling well earlier," Ripley confirms. "I'm still not feeling well. Probably because of all the bloodloss and my arm hurtin'." She gives him a small smile. "Look, I'll work on Mabel's show with you, and then Mabel'll owe you a favor, too. Sound fair?"

"I-I guess, yeah," he says, trailing off. "A-Aunt Ripley?"

"Yeah, sugar?" she asks, her smile fading as she watches his anxious little dance.

"I love you," he says, before fleeing, his face and ears a deep pink. Ripley stares after him for a few moments, before sinking her face into her free hand.

"Yanno," Fiddleford says, finishing up on her arm. "Those kids'd be devastated if'n anything happened to ya."

"I know, Fidds," she says hoarsely.

"If Stanford an' I had been just a little bit further off," he says quietly. "If we'd been at the bottom of the cliffs when I called ya. If we'd given up and went back home to wait you out. If-"

"I _know_ , Fidds," she snaps, then cringes, hot tears welling in her eyes. "I know, Fidds, I know. I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to do that, I wasn't _trying_ to hurt myself, I didn't mean to-"

"I know," he says, pulling his skinny arms around her shoulders and letting her plant her face against his chest. "It's okay, jes' don't do it again, okay?"

"Okay," she says, muffled.

"We'll tell people you were mauled by wolves on the Connecticut turnpike," he suggests, and she laughs weakly and wonders why that sounds so familiar.

They head into the living room together after Fiddleford makes sure she eats the soup, and she insists that he eat the sandwiches to protect Mabe's feelings. Mabel puts Ripley in charge of hotglueing facial features onto the puppets; she hesitates just a little too long when staring down at the bag of googly eyes, and Fiddleford takes them and the spare gluegun.

Ripley sighs, reaching for the scissors and the yarn so she can start sticking hair onto the puppets instead.

Dipper wordlessly moves the scissors out of her reach, cutting up a bunch of brown yarn and handing it over to her. He doesn't meet her eyes, but his ears are still bright pink.

Ripley bites back the urge to say anything about it.

She lets her mind wander a little as she attaches "hair," holding up her work for inspection a few times and getting the OK from her partners in puppet production.

"Go a lot faster if we could wrangle Ford into helping," she murmurs, and Fidds makes a soft noise of agreement.

Of course, Ford is working downstairs on the...

Ripley pauses, gazing off into space, working at the thought as it tries to form. Ford's downstairs because he's working to shut the Big Portal off. It has to be done safely.

The Big Portal hasn't been turned on in weeks, not since it accidentally turned itself on and they couldn't turn it back off, and the reason for that is because Ripley destroyed a third of the machinery, using Sparky to slice through steel and wiring and moving parts like a hot knife through butter.

The Big Portal can't possibly have been on all this time, unless Ford was actively working to _fix_ it, and that-

"Aunt Ripley, you're- uh- dripping," Dipper says awkwardly, and she gives him an apologetic smile and puts the glue gun down.

"Sorry, honey. I got lost for a minute there," she says, looking at the puppet in her hands- a cream-colored foot sewn onto a maroon ankle, dark gray yarn hair, a tan felt trenchcoat, and big black pipe-cleaner glasses. "Hey, Fidds, when's the last time any of us went downstairs to help Ford out?"

"Umm," he says, tongue out of his mouth as he threads a needle. "Din't Rick go down a couple times?"

"No," Ripley says, chewing on her lower lip. "Was gonna but, uh, Rick got preoccupied. They made plans to have him look at the leftovers when he came back."

"Mm," Fiddleford says, sewing a button onto a puppet's face where, she guesses, it'll be the eye. "Well, then, it would've... well, it wasn't me nor Stan, ya'll fought about that a bit... well, you went down, dincha?"

"I wasn't... going in there to work, I just brought him coffee a couple times," Ripley says, frowning. She catches Dipper giving her a worried look, and she schools her face into a smile.

"It's alright, Dippy-doo, I'll go down and make sure he's not workin' too hard. Let's get back to work on these dang puppets, huh?"

"Sure," he says, looking down.


	5. You Turn The Screws

He is standing in a field of wheat. The wheat is the same gray-brown as the dust he's haphazardly swiped away from books and tools and computers thirty years past their time of usefulness, the same gray-brown as the discarded socks and rags left over from some aborted attempt at cleaning Ford's hellish little office shrine on the floor between the house's sublevel and the basement lab.

(He remembers seeing it, his first weekend back, and has it really only been a matter of weeks? He remembers trying to think of Stan- battered and burned, a thirty year old man who'd spent most of the prior thirteen-year span homeless and destitute, scrambling to understand the deadly puzzle left behind by his genius fool of a brother- on his hands and knees, trying to make this place clean for what he must have hoped would be Ford's imminent return. He can see the whorls of slightly cleaner surfaces, and he can see where his brother's hand went light and hesitant the closer to the statues and engravings and gently rotting wall hangings it went. He knows how Stan eventually dealt with Ford's upstairs study, and isn't surprised that this became one more tomb in the house for the brother that failed to be saved. He wonders what Stan must have thought of him, of his obsession, and is too ashamed too ask, and too sore still to show Stan his shame.)

He knows it is a dream. The detritus of the life he left behind is all around him- the portal an inert ruin of itself, the Stanowar faded and listing to one side and warping in the salty sea air, the old swingset that he and Stan used to frequent whenever they needed to clear their heads. The air smells like the bitter ammonia-heavy air in the forest he saw in Ripley's mindscape, and even though he only saw a few seconds of it- Ripley running, thin and shaking and sobbing hoarsely with every step, mindless panic written on her face, before he'd slammed the door shut, relieved to realize that Fiddleford and the kids hadn't seen what he'd seen- he still remembers the thick odor and the bite at the back of his throat when he breathed it in. When he looks up the sky is the same mint green it was in Stan and Ripley's shared mindscape, a solid milky dome overhead missing the fluffy clouds he vaguely remembers from the few times he and Ripley had shared mindspace before they were torn apart.

"Ripley?" Ford calls hesitantly, glancing around. There is a van that he doesn't remember having ever seen, off-white with blue and orange stripes and stars and something that he knows should be a word but is instead a garbled, unreadable mess. The back doors are open, and there's a pair of legs dangling idly out the back, bare toes plucking dexterously at individual stalks of wheat. He considers the sight for a few moments, realizes that in the memory- for surely, he decides, that's what this is- the van must have been parked in a field of tall, unmowed grass.

"Rip-" he starts again, then stops. She wouldn't _know_ the name Ripley _now_. The people inside the van are talking quietly; their voices blend gently into the unfamiliar music coming from the radio.

He steps cautiously forward. The girl- younger-looking than Soos by several years at the very least, and absolutely looking ten years the junior of the woman Ford eventually met- is wearing a loose, off-black t-shirt made thin with years and years of wear over a pair of ragged men's boxers. There's a band logo on the front of her shirt that seems awfully familiar, even though it, like the words painted on the outside of the van, is gibberish now. The sides of her head are shaved to the skin, and when she sits up to scoot closer to the man in the van with her a short tangle of thick blonde hair falls into her eyes. She's not wearing glasses and there are no scars on her face, just lots of thin, faint little ones on her thighs and arms and hands that he sees as she passes a lit joint over to the man.

"███, do you believe in aliens?" the man asks her dreamily. He reminds Ford of Soos- baby-faced, the barest hint of facial hair dusting the edges of his round jaw, big-eyed and honest-looking. He's probably about the same age as Soos, come to think of it. His chestnut-brown hair is thick and falls past his waist, and he's wearing another black band shirt, this one with the sleeves torn off. His feet are bare too, and his boxers are a match to the ones she's wearing. Pale gray smoke billows out of his mouth.

"Absolutely," she says, and it's _her_. Ford's breath catches in his throat as he reaches out to touch her arm, and the image jitters for a moment- and that's all it is, just a moving picture, a memory of a memory, not truly interactive the way memories can be in the mindscape. She gives the man a sly little smile he's seen on her face thousands of times. "An infinite universe, and an infinite number of universes. It'd be stupid to think it's just us."

"Wow," he says, leaning forward. "You know, I'm writing the next album about space and, like, what if I was a comet?"

"If you were a comet," she muses, playing with a lock of his hair. "Well, you'd be beautiful and impressive, but y'know Greg, you'd probably be hella lonely, too."

"Yeah," he agrees, glancing over at her. "Are, um. Are you lonely, ███?"

"I'm used to it," she says mildly, plucking the joint from his mouth. "I never really had, you know, friends, especially after my brother skipped town."

"You don't really talk about him," the man- Greg- says, pulling an arm around her waist. Ford's skin crawls for a second, sure he's intruding on some lost memory of an _intimate_ thing-

-but they just snuggle companionably into the stained and sagging mattress, comfortable and close but not particularly touchy-feely and certainly not what Ford's brain cautiously would identify as _sensual_. They're just... together in the same space. He's seen her and Stan like this at least a dozen times since he got back, and maybe half a dozen times he's walked in on her and Fiddleford sitting or reading quietly, practically in each other's laps. Even before they really became close, she used to wrap herself around Ford when she was relaxed enough.

"My brother left me behind for a reason," she mutters. "He's a scientific genius, and I'm a fuckin' idiot. You can't go around being a genius physicist-chemist-xenobotanist if you're babysitting some shitty little dumbass."

"Oh," Greg says, visibly uncomfortable. Smoke curls catlike against the ceiling of the van, and Ford wonders how much time passed between this memory and the night she was abducted. Greg shifts a little, sighing, and she sighs back. "Marty thinks we should head back up north."

"And Marty's an asshole," she says immediately. "Marty's just sayin' that because I'm sayin' we should stick around here. You know he tried to grab my ass last week?"

Ford _hates_ Marty.

Greg's arm tightens around her. "You want me to talk to him, ███?"

"Nah," she sighs, closing her eyes. "Wait until you're doin' pretty well, then rip the rug out from under him. Maybe get a few guys to beat the shit out of him, he bullies the crap outta you. Hey, you know what, I can set that up if you want. I know a guy who can set shit like that up."

"R-really?" Greg asks despite himself, and she hums a little.

"Yeah, that rounds out the list of useful shit my brother left behind. The treehouse, the phone numbers for a dozen dealers, and a way to contact a guy who's good at setting shit up for ya." She huffs out a laugh. "And I ain't goin' back for the treehouse, so I guess it's just the last two then."

"I'll take it into consideration?" Greg asks, reaching over her for an opened bag of Stay-Puft marshmallows-

-and the image freezes. Ford frowns, tentatively touching her knee, and the image jitters again before starting back up at the beginning, her legs dangling aimlessly out of the back of the van.

A shadow falls over him, and he takes a few startled steps back before turning to face the intruder.

"Get out of here," he snarls at the smug-looking yellow triangle gleaming in the sky before him.

"Wow, is that the thanks I get?" Bill asks, his voice echoing around the field. "And here I thought you'd enjoy a little taste of what One Sword was like as a nubile teenaged human, Sixer!"

"Get _the fuck_ out of here," Ford reiterates, fists quivering at his sides. "I don't know what you think you'd gain from showing me that- that-"

"It's a memory, pal- the real deal!" Bill titters, scattering into several smaller Bills and fluttering around Ford's head like moths. "You wanna know where that Greg guy ended up? He's got a kid over in-"

"It's not going to work," Ford snaps. "You have no power here anymore, Cipher- whatever is you think you can-"

"She doesn't have that memory anymore," the Bill closest to him says, crowding up against the side of his face. "She doesn't even remember the word _Greg_!"

"You want to see the version where I _didn't_ censor her name? Her _real_ name?" the Bill to his right asks, drawing the word out and ruffling Ford's hair with one pinprick-wide hand. "I mean, your little gal pal will always be One Sword to _me_ , but I know you humans sure to like to know the _truth_ about people!"

"You don't know the meaning of the word," Ford bites out, and a third Bill laughs, flicking Ford's nose.

"Sure do, Poindexter! I mean, just because you were too blind to see it at the time-"

"Get out of my dreamscape," Ford growls, batting fruitlessly at the triangles. "If you think I'll have any dealings with you in exchange for- for what, for memories of a youth that she hasn't needed for twenty years, you're sorely mistaken."

"Oh, buddy, no," Bill croons. "I mean, yes, in case you haven't figured it out yet, I could give them back at any time- _all of them_ , heck, even the stuff you meatbags don't normally remember, like the nine months you're being carted around inside a blob of amniotic gunk. But no!" He whirls a couple of times around Ford's head, too fast to track, and ends up in the same spot he'd originally been. "That was just a gift, Six-fingers, a little somethin'-somethin' to show you that I'm not here to fight! It worked, didn't it?"

"No," Ford grinds out. "It did not."

"Oh." Bill's yellow seems to fade slightly, before flashing brighter than before. "Oh well! Sixer, I'm in a bit of a predicament, here!"

"I could not possibly care less about your "predicament," Cipher," Ford says flatly, turning away.

"Oh, **I THINK YOU CARE _QUITE A BIT_** ," Bill thunders, filling Ford's field of vision before flitting back to Ford's shoulder. "Y'see, One Sword's being used, pal- by an old friend of mine who's been anglin' to get rid of me since, oh, I think you bulging sacks call it the Permian Extinction? An-ee-way," he chirps, "right now you and I want the same thing, Sixer! See, I don't want to get eaten by a deranged ex-henchman, and you don't want your girlfriend to turn into the thing doing the eating!" His eye flashes a series of images- Ripley's bruised and exhausted face cradled in a huge, bloody hand; slick tongues pinning her in place, lifting her from the ground so that her feet dangle helplessly; Ripley thrashing on the ground as something ink-black and leechlike wriggles and forces its way into her mouth, her throat bulging, her eyes rolled back in her head- and Ford turns his head away, gritting his teeth.

"I don't want to see that," he snaps, and suddenly it's everywhere: Ripley's in what looks like an abandoned temple and she's scrambling and failing to get away from a greenish-black army of eyes and tongues and jutting teeth mashed together in the vague shape of a human woman, and Ford can't hear it but he can _see_ the way her body moves when she sobs, when that thing crowds into her space and puts a mouth against her ear and he can _see_ the moment that she gives up, goes limp, her eyes streaming.

"You think this is bad, Sixer?"

Ripley covered in ash, her hands blistered and filthy, on her knees and gazing at a row of dozens of little mounds, her expression vacant, a drawing of an open mouth with an eye in it graffitied in fresh blood on the wall behind her.

"Just wait until your girlfriend's transformation is complete, buddy!"

A writhing mass of filth and darkness, tearing fleeing alien creatures apart. The same monster, ripping apart something that looks like a megatherium in a spray of gore and entrails and lapping up the blood with hundreds of differently-sized tongues. The monster looking vaguely human, pointing angrily at a fleeing blonde figure high in the trees, before turning to the quivering old woman on the ground before her-

Ford recoils, shutting his eyes against the splash of red.

"You know it's already started, don't you? She's already told you that it's started, Fordsy-"

-she's in the forest, the local forest, and it's dark but he can see her because there are a dozen glowing eyes on her face and neck and the exposed parts of her chest and arms and hands-

"Ford-"

-she's in the backseat of a lurid yellow car with bright red leather seats, twitching in her sleep, and when she makes a soft noise three other mouths stretch open in her throat and shoulder and at the base of her skull-

"-and our buddy Tasha's going to go after me, no doubt about it, but who do you think she's gonna eat _first_ , Sixer?"

-and this isn't a memory, _it cannot be a memory_ , the thing that's meant to be Ripley standing silently in the kids' room upstairs, turning its face with its too-wide mouth this way and that before it starts drooling in anticipation, tongues lolling from places that shouldn't have tongues, and it takes a step toward Dipper as he sleeps-

"Ford!"

Ford opens his eyes, heart racing. He's upright, but he doesn't feel like he just sat up, and his head is against a chest and there are arms around his shoulders.

"Sweetheart," she says gently, her lips against his forehead. "You were having a bad dream, Professor."

He lets out a wordless moan, pulling his arms around her and pressing his face against her chest. She sighs and tightens her arms around him.

"That bad, huh? You wanna tell me what it was about?" she asks, and he gulps down a breath and sits up, looking at her in the darkness, pawing at injuries he saw that thing leave on her and feeling only scars, feeling for openings on her throat and back and arms, feeling for teeth. In the dark and without his glasses he can forget momentarily that less than twenty-four hours ago he saw her plunge a knife into her own arm and _smile_. She's here and she's solid and real and he's in reality with her, the dream is over and it was never real, not really. It's just the same nightmare routine they had every night for nearly five years; how strange, he thinks distantly, his forehead dropping to press against hers, that nearly twenty years later it all comes back like they never parted.

"Stanford?" she asks softly, and he can hear the worry in her voice. "What do you need? Was it- was it _him_?"

And he could tell her the truth: yes, it was, but then she'll ask what it was that bastard was saying and showing him, what he tried to make Ford think about her, and that- that can't- Ford would rather cut out his own tongue than let those words pass his lips, would rather never speak again than know what her face does when he tells her that Bill tried to make her look like a monster, that Bill showed him her monster.

"You and Dipper. Danger," Ford chokes out. Truth enough. He wraps himself around her and rocks, and she strokes her fingertips through his hair.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I'm so sorry I scared you the other night, honey. I'm sorry I got mad at you. I'm sorry about everything."

"Nnghh," he says into her chest, feeling like the least articulate person in the universe, but she must be able to parse his meaning, because she ducks down and smooches the top of his head.

"I _know_ it's not what you were dreaming about," she replies softly. "I'm still sorry about it." She nudges his head with her chin. "You wanna lay down until breakfast, dearest?"

"Th-that," Ford forces out, finally able to use words in a sentence, "would be. An ideal next step."

"Okay," she says, shifting until they're both more or less horizontal, the blanket pulled up to Ford's armpit. He presses his face against her throat, close enough to feel her pulse through her skin as well as through the pendant on his chest.

"I apologize for waking you," he says.

"You kicked me in the crotch and elbowed my sternum," she says idly, before huffing a laugh. "And I don't want you to apologize for that, because we both know I've punched your dick in your sleep _twice_ while having nightmares back in the day."

"Ugh," Ford says, remembering that fact for the first time in decades.

She is safe- for now- with him. Not mentally, not from Cipher, but physically, at least. Now more than ever he's glad of his decision to do something, once and for all, about Cipher and the Nightmare Realm and the natural weak spot in reality that Ford exploited to create the- that _Cipher_ exploited to create the portal. He considers telling her about the project- about the bomb- and decides against it for now.

Let it be a pleasant surprise.

And if the guilt over his dream and obvious distress keeps her from pestering Six Fingers about what exactly he's been doing downstairs?

Well.

That's just a happy coincidence, isn't it?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

"Thank you for inviting us," Dr. Elliot says seriously, leaning over an already-flagging Grayson to direct his comment at Stan "Lee, not Ford" Pines, who swivels the handheld video recorder his way.

"Don't thank me, thank the Nerd Herd for insisting we give you guys some fun activities to make up for, uh, not being... able to arrest them?" Dr. Pines's voice trails off a little at the end. "I uh, I'm not sure I have that one right."

"You kind of do," Grayson grumbles, his eyes glazed over. "How long is this play- it's a play, right?- how long is it supposed to last, anyway?"

"Don't mind him," Dr. Elliot says briskly. "He falls asleep during meetings that have powerpoint presentations, too."

"If you want me to be awake don't make me sit still in the dark," Grayson mumbles. The man- who Dr. Elliot is only positive isn't the _other_ Dr. Pines having a laugh at them because of the number of fingers- lowers the camera slightly, unimpressed.

"I think Soos has a couple of cans of that Creature energy drink," he says slowly, eyeing Grayson. "I'll sell it to ya half off. Five bucks for the can."

"It's Monster, Mr. Pines," Soos says cheerfully from his other side. Dr. Elliot pulls a five dollar bill out of his wallet and exchanges it for the can with a sigh of gratitude, before forcibly nudging Grayson with it. In the row behind them with a redhaired teenaged girl and a bag of sour gummy worms to split between them, McGucket- who has been nothing but friendly, regardless of how much of mad scientist Person Of Interest he might be- snorts gently.

"Hush up in front," he whispers, and Pines gives him a grimace before turning back to the stage.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Grayson asks Dr. Elliot.

"Drink it so you don't miss the little girl's sock play," he says urgently. Grayson pops the tab and begins drinking, then shudders visibly.

"Oh _no_ , this is that awful junk Tango drinks," he complains, and at Doc's narrow-eyed stare he sighs and continues.

"So where are your kids?" Dr. Pines asks gruffly, turning back toward the dark stage.

"Your niece, ah, apparently requested their assistance, and Ginger said they have some experience as a theater tech in high school-"

"I thought Ginger was a Foundation baby," Grayson interrupts slowly, lifting his head.

"Mmhmm, they all are, so-"

"So Ginger was involved with that highly creative reimagining of Heathers: The Musical a few years back?" Grayson asks urgently.

"Yes, they-" Dr. Elliot locks eyes with Grayson for a moment, then turns to Dr. Pines, gently tugging his sleeve. "Dr. Pines, there's no- pyrotechnic work in this play, is there?"

"There might be," Pines says, laughing nervously. "Say, I been meaning to ask, why do you guys call me _doctor_? Yanno Ford's the smart guy, right?"

"Um," Dr. Elliot says, blinking over his spectacles at him. "You are the Dr. Pines who published several articles on the interaction of materials engineering and quantum physics, are you not?"

"I mean, I just- that wasn't real, though, I just needed to publish some stuff to keep the grant money coming in. And I couldn't keep it up after a few years, anyway," Pines says, hiding behind his camera a little. "We got you fellas up to speed on that, right? Stanley versus Stanford, portal shenanigans, yadda yadda-"

"Right," Grayson says from within the depths of energy drink hell.

"Dr. Pines, that's- that's from, ah, during your "twin brother's" expedition into other dimensions, though," Dr. Elliot says slowly. "So it was you who performed those experiments and documented your findings and, indeed, if what your, ah, "brother" says is accurate, you managed to perform those experiments at all because you were able to generate enough of a working dimensional rift to expose those items to quantum energies. All on your own, without a team of researchers and assistants backing you up."

"Why do you keep doing that, by the way, why do you keep saying brother like that?" Grayson asks quietly, and Dr. Elliot ignores him. He'll stop gently insinuating that there's some sort of clone situation going on if and only if he sees proof.

"Look, buddy, I- come on, you know I didn't go to college or nothin' though," Pines protests softly, fiddling with his camera. "That was all just dumb... luck or whatever, I didn't even finish high school."

"Dr. Pines- Mister Pines," Dr. Elliot corrects grudgingly, "your work from the late eighties alone would have qualified you for doctorates in engineering and physics several times over. In fact, to be completely honest, most of the scientists from our Foundation don't have any formal schooling outside of Foundation-accredited institutions. If we could convince you to come work with us you'd already have everything we'd need to hire you as a senior researcher. Why-"

"Hah, no, thanks, uh- no, thanks," Pines says thickly, clearing his throat a little. "Catch me workin' some kinda nerd job. That's- that's Ford's thing."

"Mr. Pines, I can safely say that you're one of the-" Dr. Elliot starts, and Grayson shushes him with a hand to his arm.

"Stop trying to hire every genius we run across," he says, and Pines goes beet red and hunches his shoulders slightly.

Soos on Pines's other side elbows him a little, beaming. "See, Mr. Pines? I've been saying forever-"

"Can it, Soos," Pines grumbles, which does nothing to dim the radiant smile on the young man's face.

Dr. Elliot sits back and tries to enjoy the... play. He follows the plot, for the most part- some sort of coming-of-age story for a little girl puppet who meets the love of her life in a freak rollerblading accident- right up until it swerves into a confusing romance plot between the Puppet Uncle and a blonde martial arts instructor who is carrying a katana made of duct tape and cardboard. Dr. Elliot frowns, gently nudging Pines.

"Is that supposed to be _you_ up there getting puppet-married to Miss Ripley?" he hisses. "I thought she's married to your "brother" Stanford!"

"She is," Pines says hollowly, his face frozen in a rictus grin. "We uh, we had to, uh, pretend to the kids that we were divorced and lookin' to rekindle the romance for a few weeks there."

"Whuh?" Grayson asks blearily. The energy drink seems to have had little to no effect on him. "You _had_ to?"

"Seconded, ya _had_ to?" McGucket asks, right in Pines's ear, making him jump a little.

"We panicked, alright?" Mr. Pines hisses back. On stage, the blonde puppet is singing to a heart-shaped locket about how she loves the Puppet Uncle but will always be sad about losing her true love, his twin brother, to a space exploration accident. Pines makes a soft, strangled noise. "Sweet Moses. Anybody have eyes on Ripley? She's supposed to be helping the kids move scenery."

"Haha, no," Grayson says, still barely awake but now jiggling his right knee nonstop. "What about the other Dr. Pines, where's he?"

"He got cast as the preacher who'll be marrying Mabel Puppet and, uh, whoever the little boy puppet is," Pines whispers back. "If- that ever happens?"

Onstage, the Ripley Puppet and the Mabel puppet are singing atonally about how true love never dies. The squared-off Puppet Uncle comes back and starts... also singing, in a voice that sounds suspiciously like that Dipper boy's, about how his true love has to remain a secret because he's living a lie, because the death of his brother means that legally he has to marry Ripley Puppet now, even though _his_ heart belongs to yet another person. Next to Doc, Mr. Pines is rigid with mortified horror.

"Stan dude," the redheaded teenager whispers from behind. "Did, uh. Did you talk to Mabel about what was in her script before she got on stage?"

"I didn't read it," Mr. Pines says, shutting his eyes.

There's at least three people in the rows ahead of them glancing curiously back at their row, then back at the Stan Pines-looking puppet on stage.

Grayson pulls out his phone and begins texting.

"Arliss, no matter how awkward this is, that's still very rude," Dr. Elliot whispers.

"It's not rude, I'm within my capacity as strike team co-commander," Grayson whispers back, pocketing the phone after a few minutes.

"If that were the case, I'd be getting a text, too-" Dr. Elliot starts, and Grayson sticks his hand in his and laces their fingers together.

"Just relax and enjoy the fireworks," he mutters.

"Wh-what-" Dr. Elliot begins, flustered. Grayson turns and gives him a sleepy, heart-melting smile, right before things start exploding onstage.

Everyone else in their row watches, stunned, as red and orange and white flashes illuminate their faces.

"Ah," Dr. Elliot says, squeezing Grayson's hand. "Literal fireworks."

"Mmhmm," Grayson says.

"Did you just intentionally sabotage a twelve year old's sock puppet show?" he asks, after a moment.

"I certainly did not," Grayson says, opening one eye at him. "I asked Ginger to see if they could do something about a sixty-two year old man getting publicly outed by his well-meaning niece. The subsequent explosions are probably unrelated."

"Probably," Dr. Elliot says, after a moment, and squeezes his hand again.

By the time all assorted children and adults reconvene backstage, Ripley and Dr. "Actually a doctor" Pines are kneeling next to Mabel giving her what looks to be a truly heartfelt peptalk. Dipper spots Stan and runs at him, face burning. 

"Grunkle Stan, I didn't know there was gonna be all that stuff about love and whatever," he says, and Stan forces out a little laugh and gets on one knee to give the kid's hair a tousle.

"Yeah, yeah, looks like a mishap in the props department put an end to all that, anywho. Where's yer sister?" he asks, and Dipper jerks a thumb over at her, now getting a hug and being lifted bodily off the ground by her aunt.

Agents Ginger and Angelface come slinking over, herded by Tango and looking somewhat abashed. They also, Dr. Elliot notices unhappily, are quite singed on their hair and clothing.

Ginger is missing half of an eyebrow.

"Well, Agents," Grayson says, after a moment. "You performed to the best of your ability. Well done."

"Ahem," Dr. Elliot protests, and Grayson gives him a helpless shrug. Doc sighs. "Seems to have been something of a lack in the safety gear department, team. Please remember to wear protective gear when working with hazardous materials."

"Okay, Pop," Angelface says, subdued. Grayson and Doc exchange another glance.

"I believe a hug is customary after the successful end of a performance," Dr. Elliot says, shyly holding out his arms.

"Even though we didn't-" Angelface gives Ginger a guilty look. "Even though it wasn't successful?"

"It's just like a mission," Grayson says firmly. "Every one you walk away from is a success."

"That _was_ our motto in Drama Club," Ginger admits. The three of them give Doc a squeeze, and Grayson clears his throat.

"As co-commander I _also_ get a hug," he says, as if he's about to list off the regulation code, page, paragraph, and addendum from the Foundation handbook proving he's in the right.

Doc catches Mr. "Supposedly not a doctor" Pines giving him a grateful eye as the trio of agents goes in for a hug with Grayson. He shoots him a small smile back.


	6. Walk On By

Ripley and Fiddleford are combining their breakfasts into one toast-and-bacon fortress when Ford comes up from the basement, his body thrumming with exhausted frustration.

"What are you two doing?" he asks, pawing at the cupboards until Stan takes pity on him and hands him a mug of coffee.

"Is- is that a trick question?" Ripley asks, exchanging glances with Fiddleford.

"Yeah, I feel like what we're doin' is pretty, uh, apparent," Fiddleford adds.

"Why are you two doing _that_?" Ford amends, and they both shrug.

"I already asked'em," Stan confides in him, jamming a couple of slices of bread into the toaster.

"We're just proving a point, Stan," Ripley says mildly. "An engineering point. It's- it's complicated and also uh, very adult."

"You're playin' with your food," Stan replies, and she huffs and bites the end off of her bacon.

"We can't all be paragons of adultiness, Stanley Stanlington," Ripley huffs. Stan makes a show of throwing his hands up and rolling his eyes.

"Y'sure showed him," Fiddleford says in a low voice. Ford feels like he's got a migraine coming on; he sinks into a chair and presses against Ripley's side, mutely sipping from his mug.

"Are the three'a you gonna leave the house anytime soon?" Stan asks peevishly, putting buttery toast and bacon on a plate and sliding it in front of Ford.

"Leave the _house_?" Ford repeats, unable to keep the distaste out of his tone.

"Why, ya need us out of yer hair?" Fiddleford asks curiously.

"We can't _all_ sit around lookin' cute all day, some of us have to do some actual manual labor around the place between tours, and-"

"Wha-at?" Ripley asks slowly, rubbing wide circles into Ford's upper back. "First- okay, first, isn't that what you pay Soos for? Handyman handymanning tasks?"

"He's got a couple of days off," Stan grumbles, pottering around the kitchen. "The kids said somethin' about teachin' him how to talk to girls."

"Soos knows how to talk to girls and if anything, Dipper's ba- still in the learning stages of talking-to-girls," Ripley says, perplexed, and Stan sighs heavily.

"I'm not opposed to having the three of them out of my hair for a couple days anyway. I- look, pal, I've lived alone for thirty years, I haven't had to be _around_ people constantly in decades," he mumbles. Ford's stomach clenches; he doesn't think he can finish this bacon. He nibbles a corner of the toast.

"Aw, Stan," Ripley coos.

"Why are you awwin' at Stan? I lived alone _in the junkyard_ those same thirty years," Fiddleford protests. Ford puts the toast down, his mouth dry as a bone.

"Awww, Fidds!" Ripley replies, and he bats away her attempt to smother him in a hug.

"I'm sure it's not a contest," Ford mutters.

"But if it was a contest," Stan pipes up, and Ford stands shakily.

"I appreciate the breakfast, Stanley. Ripley, Fiddleford, did you need a hand with whatever you're doing today?" he asks, and the three of them exchange an inscrutable look.

"You know what, hon, that's a good idea, thanks for the assist," Ripley says, standing. "Actually, we- actually, we're meeting someone for lunch, and Fidds needs moral support, don'cha Fidds."

"I'm sure that's not what you should be callin' it," Fidds replies, picking up the plates with the breakfast fort and giving it a perplexed frown. "Would- would it be morally wrong to feed this to Waddles? Would the pig even notice?"

Everyone stares at him for a moment, before Stan plucks the plate out of his hands.

"I'm gonna eat this, I can't believe of all the people in this house that it's you two that's wastin' food," he grumbles.

"Somebody's grumpy," Ripley mutters, escorting Ford out. "Look, All-star, you look like you were working all night. We're not leaving till eleven, you want to take a nap?"

"And what will you and Fiddleford be doing during this nap?" Ford asks, and Ripley pats his arm.

"You want us to hang out with you while you're napping?" she asks kindly, and Fiddleford gives him a small, nervous smile.

"Do me some good to have some company while I'm practicin' what I'm gonna say," he offers. "Even if it's just you sleepin' like a lump on a log."

This is... acceptable. Ford mumbles something that isn't even coherent to himself; Ripley arranges herself upright, a pillow at her lower back, another on her open lap, and Ford blearily remembers to drop his trenchcoat on the floor and deposit his glasses on the nightstand before he crawls into bed, his head in her lap and his arms wrapping loosely around her thigh. Her fingers sink into his hair, and he lets out a soft little noise before he remembers that Fiddleford is in the room.

"Poor Professor," she murmurs quietly, before Fiddleford clears his throat, pacing slightly.

"Yanno how Tate's kinda, uh, kinda stoic," he begins nervously.

"You could say that," Ripley says in a careful tone. "I didn't catch stoic off him so much as, uh. Doesn't express things the same."

Ford is drifting- not unpleasantly- between being too aware of his surroundings and their conversation to sleep, and being too tired, mentally and physically, to engage.

"D'you think I should-" Fiddleford stops and starts, losing his words before they begin, and Ford can feel Ripley sigh and lean forward with her arm to touch something briefly.

"Relax and quit pulling," she says, settling back into her spot. "Just be direct, Fidds, I think he'll appreciate it."

"Okay," Fiddleford says in a small voice. "Okay. Good afternoon Tate, I'm glad you took the time to meet with me today."

"Direct and less formal, maybe?" she suggests, her stomach vibrating gently against Ford's head as she speaks.

"... hi, Tate. I've missed you," he says, and she moves a little bit. Ford shifts slightly, wrapping his hand around the front of her knee. "I... I know I haven't been a good father, but I, ah, I... I-"

"Hey," Ripley says gently. "It's gonna be alright, Fidds, no matter what. He loves you. He knows that you love him even at your worst, and he wants... he wants things to be okay. You're doing your best. You literally can't do anything to screw this up, okay?"

"Yes, I _could_ ," Fiddleford replies unhappily, his voice shaking.

"I mean, we could all do a lot of things, but we don't, and you won't," she says quietly. "Just... remember. Direct, informal, tactful. I know you can do it. You want me to pretend to be Tate, just to see how bad it could really honestly get?"

"If y'think that'll help," Fiddleford replies fretfully.

"Okay, Dad," Ripley says in a slightly deeper voice. "I'm Tate."

"Alright, yes," Fiddleford says in a perplexed tone. "So, um, Tate, how, uh, how are you?"

"I have a degree in Materials Engineering but I gave up my job in Klamath Falls to move here and become a park ranger," Ripley says in the same Tate Voice.

"Okay," Fiddleford says slowly. "How, um. How have you been lately?"

"Well Ah almost got ate-en by an alley-gator," Ripley says enthusiastically. Fiddleford is silent for a moment.

"Ripley, neither he nor I sounds like that, first of all."

"It's called acting, Fiddsy, I'm using my creative liscence."

"Second of all, _no he didn't_ ," Fiddleford says sternly.

"How do you know?" she asks experimentally, and he sighs.

"Gators bein' ectothermic an' this place bein' too cold in winters, not livin' anywhere near here, and there bein' no record of gators livin' in-"

"Wait, no, seriously," Ripley says slowly. "There's got to be at least one, because you had a two foot gator bitin' on your arm at the beginning of the summer, remember? I was here for that, I remember the kids telling me."

"I..." Fiddleford trails off, and the two of them are blessedly silent for a moment, before Ripley dives suddenly, giving Ford's shoulder an apologetic pat for dislodging him. He cracks an eye open; she has her phone against her ear, and is standing with a pensive expression before relief breaks over her entire face.

"Hey! Sweetie hey," she says, giving Fiddleford a thumbs' up. "Hey, Tater-Tot, just making sure you're still on for today. Also, hey, just checking to make sure there aren't any, uh, reports of alligators in the lake." He must be speaking, because she's bobbing her head enthusiastically. "Okay, good. Great! Yeah, we'll see you soon. Oh, we're bringing Ford, too. Yeah, haha, sure. Bye." She closes her phone and rolls herself back into the bed, tangling Ford into her legs. "No gators."

"Thanks for checkin'," Fiddleford says quietly. They're all quiet for the time being, and then she clears her throat noisily.

"We have two and a half hours to spare, and I think you're gonna ace this whole, talking, getting to know your son again thing," she says. "Want to join the Savage Pines Love Nest for a nap and bro cuddles? I'll shove Ford over, he'll be fine."

"Pines Savage," Ford mumbles. "Alphabetical."

"It was my bed first, I get to name it," she says fondly, tweaking Ford's nose. "This shit's legally binding in the Regular Bullshit Dimension."

"I'm certain you know this dimension's actual designation-" Ford starts, and Fiddleford huffs a sigh.

"Will a nap and bro cuddles be _quiet_ , with you two?"

"Only one way to find out," Ripley says enticingly. Something on her face must convince him, Ford thinks sleepily, because soon enough he's wedged between them, his slight frame warmer than Ford expected, his head tucked against her chest, blunted fingertips plucking nervously at the edge of the bandages on Ripley's arm.

"What is a bro cuddle," Ford muses.

"Babe, _shut up_ and go to _sleep_ ," Ripley says fondly.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Susan gives them a booth. Ripley and Ford sit on the ends of their benches, although there was a very minor verbal scuffle when they had to decide which one of them would get the seat with a view of the exit. The silence after Susan leaves them with a stack of completely unnecessary menus is unbearable; Ripley jumps to fill it.

"Tate, how's our uh, our mutual friend.... Barry?" she asks brightly.

"I don't know anybody named Barry," he says cautiously.

"You know. Barry... Multiple. Bear-y," she adds. He takes a few seconds to figure out what she's saying, and sighs.

"He's fine. The forest is restless. He tries to stay out of things."

"Guess you got that in common, huh," she says, and silence falls again. She glances around to take a pulse check- Fiddleford is gently trembling beside her, and Ford keeps craning his head to try to watch both the exit and the entrance to the kitchen, and Tate is quiet but not, she hopes, mortified.

"Tate," Fidds says, his voice tilting ever so slightly at the end. There's a few seconds of silence that Ripley can't bring herself to break.

"Hi, Dad," Tate says slowly. "Do... do you know me today?"

"I know you," Fidds says. Ripley and Ford exchange a brief, intense, panicky glance; at least she's not the only one who'd rather not be a witness to this, but when she feels Ford shift in his seat she grabs his wrist and pins it to the table, pressing her mouth together in a line and trying to convey a simple message: _We promised to be here._

There is a very faint apology in the lines of his face, in the way his eyes glide over to the McGuckets, in the slight tremble of his throat as he swallows: _I know._

"You- ah- you look good, Dad," Tate says softly. "You look... better."

"I _feel_ better," Fiddleford replies, and Tate looks down at the menu.

"You've felt better before."

Susan swoops in to the rescue, and Ripley's more than a little sure she was standing just behind the corner into the kitchen, waiting for the appropriate moment to swoop in and break the tension. Ripley loves her.

"So what're we drinkin' today?" she asks heartily.

"Coke for me, Missus Wentworth," Tate says.

"Yeah, me too," Ripley says, nudging Fiddleford. "You want a Coke, Fidds?"

"Water's probably best," Fiddleford says.

"Coffee for me," Ford mutters.

"Two Cokes, a water, and a coffee," Susan reads out loud.

"Keep the coffee coming," Ford adds, and she gives him a perky little nod.

"Sure thing, Mr. Mystery!"

Ford opens his mouth, thinks better of whatever he was going to say, and closes it with a snap. Ripley's proud of him.

"Tate, I, uh. I've... I've missed you, son. A-and I'm sorry. I'm sorry for- for everything, Tate. Everything I remember, and everything I- everything I _don't_." Next to her, Fiddleford gulps, his fingertips drumming a too-fast, nervous tempo on the battered tabletop, and Ripley reaches over and gives his hand a squeeze.

"You, um," Tate says tentatively, looking resolutely out the window instead of at his father. "You don't remember us having this conversation before."

It's not a question. Fidds looks stricken, hurt worse than anything Ripley's seen on him before now. Tate plays with the corner of his menu.

"Dad?" Tate asks. "I, uh. I guess you... don't remember this, but my answer hasn't changed since the last time we, um, talked."

Ripley and Ford make eye contact again. This is... way more intense than she'd wanted it to be.

"I forgave you, Dad," Tate says quietly. "I just... I just didn't know how to fix you."

"Weren't your mess to fix, Tater-Tot," Fiddleford says wetly, and Susan, God bless her, arrives with the drinks.

The minute her back is turned Ford pulls out a flask and pours generously into his mug.

"You want any of this, honey?" Ford asks, and Ripley reaches over with a nod, tipping it into her Coke.

"You're doing this now?" Fiddleford asks wearily, and Ripley gives him a poke.

"We said we'd be here as moral support for our friends, we didn't say we'd be stone-ass sober."

"This is a conversation for another time," Ford says hastily, tucking the flask away. "We, ah, we apologize. We won't be doing that again."

"What he said," Ripley says into her glass. Fidds and Tate give them tiny frowns- Fidds and Tate give them the _same_ frown, actually, which is cuter than she'd thought it would be, although Fidds looks- briefly- thoughtful, too, as if he just noticed something. Susan scuttles over again- a little soon, but there's no point in pretending that she's not hovering nearby and eavesdropping on every word.

"We ready to order, everybody?" she asks.

Ripley sighs, flipping the menu over a few times. "Yeah, uh, what's the silver dollar plate? Sounds interesting."

"You'll like it," Susan says knowingly, jotting it down.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ripley and Ford are probably too heavy to be sitting on the hood of the Ripleymobile together, but they don't really want to drive off with Fidds and Tate still having a quiet conversation in the front of Tate's pickup truck. They're studiously avoiding sharing the flask again, because neither of them wants to make Fiddleford drive them home after the day they've had- it's only three but the sun's beating down on them and Ripley doesn't know how Ford's upright after how little sleep he's had, but she could happily go for a second nap. She can only imagine how exhausted Fidds is going to be after this.

"Query," Ford says suddenly.

"Response," Ripley says back, fanning herself a little.

"Why isn't Fiddleford's wife here?" he asks, and she stops, aghast. "I understand that they've since divorced, but shouldn't she be _involved_ with, with Fiddleford's recovery or-"

"Um," Ripley says, and Ford peers over his glasses at her. "Pumpkin, Mrs. Fidds is dead. She died twenty years ago."

"Amanda's _dead_?" Ford gasps, and Ripley takes his hand. It occurs to her all at once that she'd never once thought about the fact that Ford might have known her- that Ford must have known her, that the sad spectre of Fiddleford's failed marriage and lost love is a real person to him. "But- but she's as healthy as a horse! Figuratively, I'm sure, she's never- she's never been sick in the entire-"

Ford's other hand goes to his mouth. Ripley isn't sure, but she has a pretty good idea that he's finding some way to blame himself for at least one thing that isn't his doing.

"Tate said she had an accident, like a car accident," Ripley says gently. "When he was twelve. That's when he got sent to live with Fidds."

Ford's eyes squeeze shut.

"You know, Ford, I think... I think Fidds and Tate would both really like if you talked to them about her," Ripley says, running her thumb over his knuckles.

"I didn't-" he says softly, his voice muffled. "I didn't think- I didn't _think_ and-"

She pulls his hand up to press her lips against it, before holding it in her lap with a sigh, stroking his forearm a little. "You didn't know."

"I didn't even _ask_ ," Ford says miserably.

"You know what? We'll feel better if we do a project," she says cajolingly. "That always works to cheer us up."

"I'm working on a project already," he says, and Ripley nudges him.

"Not a work project. A fun project. A nice project. Heck, even just an afternoon with the kids doing crafts will be good for you, hon-" Ford straightens up suddenly, glancing sharply at the truck where Fiddleford and Tate are still talking.

"It's been twenty years? Fiddleford and Amanda married at eighteen, he's never- he'd never not been with her," he says, drumming his hand on the hood of the car.

"Oh, that's- that's sweet and it's sad," Ripley says, blinking. They ponder in silence for a few moments, before turning to one another at the same time.

"Say, what if we-"

"You wanna do someth-"

They pause, and Ford smiles tentatively. "You first."

"It's a lovey dovey idea with Fidds," Ripley says, and Ford translates that internally before nodding. "Why don't we try to do something nice with Fidds, maybe uh, I dunno. I feel like he's really lonely a lot of the time? And that's with livin' in a house with all of us, even, maybe- maybe we could do something about that."

"That's precisely what I was thinking," Ford says, beaming. "Although I was, specifically, thinking that- well- I-I'm not suggesting he replace Amanda, on the contrary, she's- she was..." He clears his throat. "She was something else. No. I just- Fiddleford's just- he's always been happiest when he was in love."

"Oohh," Ripley says. "That's- that's a thought. You know, I think Susan up at the diner likes him?"

"That's a good place to start," Ford says, patting himself down. "Do you have a pen or a notepad? I seem to have left mine at home-"

"Darling," Ripley sighs, grinning. "It's in the glove compartment- uh- but listen, do you really feel like this is the right time to do things the Ford Pines Scientific Method Way?"

"That's redundant, it should be just called the Ford Pines Method," Ford says cheekily, and she swipes at his thigh.

"Dork," she says, huffing a laugh. "You know what I mean, Fordsy. Like- yeah, taking down data and applying proven principles, sure, but you... you know this isn't your strength, Ford."

"Excuse _me_ ," he says, drawing himself up.

"Not science and research, babe, I mean like- the lovey dovey romancey stuff," she clarifies. "You know? Figuring out... like... who is gonna love Fidds as much as we love him and if he's gonna love them back. Or figuring out if he's gonna want to, you know. Do the- have- engage in sexual congress with them. It's not your forte, right?"

"I-" Ford deflates a little, although Ripley can't imagine why that would bother him when he's obviously more than made up for his lack of knowledge there in... literally every other subject. "I suppose you have a point, Ripley."

"I think we should- strive not to, uh, think too much about the sexual congress thing when it comes to Fidds," Ripley says slowly. "I feel like I don't want to imagine it."

"I've seen it," Ford mutters.

"Ew," Ripley says, grimacing.

"We shared a dorm for four years, it was an inevitability," Ford shrugs, rubbing his jaw. "So... so what do you suggest, then, if I'm, ah, less than an expert on the matter?"

"Well-" Ripley starts, then stops, grinning. "You know what? You know who literally wrote like, an entire page in my field journal about how to romance Stan?"

"I'm having a hard time imagining," Ford says honestly.

"Mabel!" Ripley claps her hands to her mouth. "Oh! Ford, this is perfect. She's doing the thing with Soos right now, too! Ford, we should get Mabel to help you."

"To help me?" Ford asks blankly, and she nods happily.

"Yeah, she's perfect. I'll go help Dipper out with the Soos thing, because honestly that guy doesn't need a whole lot of coaching," Ripley adds, swinging her feet a little as Tate comes out of the truck and goes around to open the door for Fiddleford. "You two are gonna have so much fun, you're so much alike it's cute."

"We- really?" Ford asks, blinking at her. She gives him a beaming smile, pulling him close for a quick hug.

"Trust me, I'm an expert," she says, giving him a thumbs' up. "You're gonna have a blast together."

"Who's gonna have a blast?" Fiddleford asks wearily, coming over.

"Ford an' Mabel," Ripley says, standing up. "I was just tellin' Ford, they're a lot alike."

"Oh, you... you know what, that's... yeah," Fidds says slowly, tilting his head a little. "Oh, God in heaven, I can see it."

"We're going to have a blast together," Ford reaffirms.

"Well, as long as yer not speakin' _literally_ , I'm sure," Fidds says, and Ripley snorts as she gets the car doors open.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mabel and Dipper are just walking into the house when Grunkle Ford just sort of looms out of nowhere at them, startling Dipper into taking a step back.

"Apologies, Dipper. I have an urgent request to make of your sister. May I- is it alright if we speak privately, Mabel?" he asks, glancing furtively around. Mabel and Dipper look over to the side; Aunt Ripley is giving them a thumb's up, so it's probably fine.

"We may," Mabel tells him, and Aunt Ripley waves Dipper over until he actually trots over to where she is. "What's the big secret, Grunkle Ford?"

"I have a mission for which you have been extremely well recommended," he says gravely, taking a knee. "But it is of the utmost importance that caution and secrecy be our bywords-"

"What?" she asks.

"It's a secret mission," he clarifies. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is called Operation Banjo Bachelor-"

"Are we gonna set Grunkle Fidds up on a date?!" she shrieks, joyfully flapping her sleeves at him, and he nods, shushing her a little with a finger to his lips.

"Your aunt's going to take over your duties with young Jesus while you're assisting me in this urgent matter," he says, and she bounces into a hug, overcome with the urge to squeal and hug something. He smells- well, sort of like a weird mix of Grunkle Stan and Aunt Ripley, but with an added hint of gasoline? She squeezes him, and he squeezes her back, before standing up. "Now, in this, as in all matters of the heart, Mabel, I defer to your expertise. Do you have any suggestions for our first plan of action?"

"Oh, I think I have some ideas," she says, grinning.

Within five minutes, she has Grunkle Ford upstairs, surrounded by posters, graphs, and a tiny model of Gravity Falls. He presses all five fingertips on his left hand to his mouth, his thumb tapping rapidly at his chin.

"You've been planning ahead, I see," he says finally.

"This is a chart of everybody in Gravity Falls who's still single," Mabel explains, slapping the front of a posterboard with a shower of rainbow glitter. "You and Aunt Ripley aren't on there because you're married."

"Yes. Good. Accurate," he replies, and she beams at him.

"And here's a chart of everybody in Gravity Falls who's friends with Grunkle Fidds," she says proudly, whipping out a long, slim presentation wand and slapping it against the front of another posterboard. "You and Aunt Ripley are on this one because you're best friends with Grunkle Fidds. Also Grunkle Stan." Her wand traces the red heart she'd drawn around their faces.

"Very good," Grunkle Ford says, frowning slightly and taking out a notebook and a pen. "I was very good friends with Fiddleford's wife, so maybe we can start by figuring out who among these individuals is the most like her?"

"That's a great idea, Grunkle Ford!" Mabel tells him, thrilled by his devotion. She plants a sticker (a purple ringed planet that says OUT OF THIS WORLD!!) on his chest. "What was Mrs. McGucket like?"

"She was quite tall and pretty," Ford says hesitantly. "And she was a nurse at a physical therapist's office. She worked with athletes quite a bit."

"Tall, good at taking care of people, likes sports," Mabel repeats, humming a little as she eyeballs her posters.

"They'd- they'd met as very young children, in gradeschool, I think. I remember her telling me that for Halloween in the first grade, they'd both gone as a little pumpkin." Ford winces a little as Mabel shrieks in appreciation of this extremely cute and wonderful mental image. "A-and they always used to watch Star Trek together, and in college they liked to dress up for Halloween as Captain Kirk and Yeoman Rand. I always had to watch Star Trek with them cuddling and being all lovey-dovey on the couch."

"So- loves costumes and Halloween, a giant nerd, sweet and also likes to embarrass you," she says, frowning. "Hmm."

Grunkle Ford stares at the posters, rolling his pen between his fingers. "Say, that- hm."

"What? Did you think of anybody who fits that description?" Mabel asks hopefully, and he coughs a little.

"Um, maybe, but I'm not sure yet. S-say, you know, your Aunt thinks Ms. Susan from the diner likes Fiddleford in that sort of way," he says quickly.

"Ooh," Mabel says, clapping her hands to her mouth. "She's really nice and beautiful and she thinks Grunkle Fidds is cute. And she's already friends with his son and with all of us!"

"B-but she isn't, um, she isn't very much like Amanda was," Ford quickly points out. "A-and someone else might also... think he's cute and be friends with his son and all of us."

"Um, that's... true I guess, but who do _you_ know who's a sweet, nerdy, tall person who loves sports and taking care of people and Halloween and making you embarrassed _and_ already loves all of us?" Mabel asks slowly, and Grunkle Ford taps his notebook nervously. She gasps, pouncing on him. "You know somebody who fits all that! Who is it?"

"I can't say," he says, gently removing her. He catches her eye and clears his throat. "To be honest, I'm not, um, one hundred percent sure this is a person who will even want to date Fiddleford-"

"Why not?!" she wails.

"-they may not want to date anybody," Ford says apologetically. "Or they may not want to date a man." Mabel considers this, frowning.

"It's not Aunt Ripley, is it?" she asks flatly.

"No, no, heaven's no," Ford says, blinking. "That's- that's not- no. Um, why-"

"Well, she's tall and sporty and a nerd who likes to embarrass you, and they go shopping and cuddle and hang out along together a lot, and that's kind of like dating," Mabel explains, and he nods. "Also, I already went through trying to make her date Grunkle Stan because I didn't know she was already married to you, so-"

"I see, but, um, no. They're just very good friends. I'm not sure if your Aunt's ever actually been... on a date." He hesitates a little, chewing his lip. "Say, Mabel, after this, do you, ah- have any tips for an old man who never, um, got to properly date his wife?"

Mabel grins at him, and he gives her a shy smile back.

It takes a while, but eventually they come up with a list of four people in town who might be interested in going on a date with Grunkle Fidds, with Lazy Susan's name at the top surrounded by a bunch of question marks, and another, fifth name at the bottom that's just four careful question marks, in case Grunkle Ford's idea works out.

At dinner, the two of them sit down covered in glitter (there was a slight craft-related accident as he helped her make a chart on another posterboard) and find out from Dipper and Aunt Ripley how Soos's dating-training went. Grunkle Fidds sort of picks at his food, but he's smiling, so that's good.

"What about you, Stanley?" Grunkle Ford asks, eyes on his plate of salisbury steak. "Did you, ah, have any... fun today?"

"Uhh," Grunkle Stan says, around a mouthful of food. "Is- is that a trick question, or- I guess, no? It was quiet, I guess. Was nice when everybody got home, me an' Fidds watched an episode of Nova."

"Yup. Ver' soothing," Grunkle Fidds asserts. Ford just looks between the two of them, making a face Dipper makes when he's trying to figure out how to say something, but in the end he just looks back down at his food.

Very interesting. Mabel starts to wonder if she can get Grunkle Ford to confirm something for her.

"So... anyway, Soos bought this cute little video game for his computer that's supposed to help teach you how to date," Aunt Ripley says slowly. "And it turns out there's a game where you can also learn how to date pigeons?"

"Why would ya wanna learn how to date pigeons?" Stan asks abruptly. "Why wouldn't it just be throwin' bread at a pigeon until it loves you?"

"I don't know, I think it's just, like, a metaphor, the pigeons are really these romantic guys who want to, uh," Dipper checks his notepad. "Fly around Feudal Japan. Oh, and it's also set in Feudal Japan."

"I still don't get it. Just tell the romantic pigeon guys you got a lot of bread at home!" Stan complains. "How is this really teachin' anybody how to date, anyway? Kids these days don't wanna just go talk to one another-"

"Stanley, you were so shy in high school that Carla McCorkle had to ask _you_ out," Ford points out, and Stan gapes at him for a moment.

"Betrayed," he says finally. "By my own flesh and blood betrayed!"

"The plot thickens," Fidds says mildly.


	7. Sheep Go To Heaven

The first memory is this: "You," she is telling him, "are not a tool... but you are also not like me." He thinks about it when he is awake, and when he is in stasis, dreaming of the great wide world that his mother promised him. He's better than other things, stronger, more deserving of life. He is not like his mother. He is not like anything.

The second memory is this: "This," she is telling him, "is what you are." There are many symbols arranged in a circle- some of them confusing, some of them not- but the one her roiling tentacle surrounds is what she calls the Masked Toad. She shows him toads; they are interesting to eat. She shows him what he can do- shifting his body from one form to another, never wearing a true face beyond the one she tells him is his.

The third memory is this: "Here," she is telling him, "is where you wait." She shows him her plan, and there is a space in it for him. There is no space in it for the three-pointed king, and this pleases him. She gives him the names of the ones who will come after, and when he finds them, she says, he is to capture and devour them. This, too, pleases him.

There are many memories after this: two of the ones his mother told him about find him, and he wears his mask perfectly when they release him from his stasis. He will discover from them how to travel, how to find the other names, and once he knows this information he will devour the Scholar's Eyes and the Guardian's Hand. He will make her proud of him.

The last memory is this: outrage, cold beyond anything he's ever felt, the creeping horror of a stasis unlike the one his mother placed him in, unnatural, and the Guardian's Hand staring morosely at him from behind the glass of the cryogenic chamber. Fury, and the spark of fear before he remembers that his mother is greater than these simpering fools, and that she will not let him fail in his mission to bring her back.

Darkness.

And then, slowly, awareness, as the stasis chamber begins, finally, to fail.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 "It's definitely a real training exercise," Aunt Ripley says easily, sipping out of the pineapple-shaped sippy cup Soos won for her at Hoo-Ha Owl's Pizzamatronic Jamboree. "You have no idea when you're going to need to shimmy up a tree with no warning."

"Cough cough," Grunkle Fidds says, before coughing into his fist for real. "Darn this pollen."

Ripley had decided this morning that it was a little _too_ nice out to practice hand-to-hand combat; now she's got Dipper, Mabel, Grunkle Fidds, Soos, and Wendy out in the woods with her. Soos is gushing about Melody and how fun it was at his cousin's engagement party, and Wendy- Wendy's nodding and smiling and listening, which is great, but sometimes she looks over at Dipper and his heart explodes out of his chest. He's sure everybody's noticing how sweaty and nervous it's making him, but nobody's saying anything, probably out of pity.

"Okay, Dipper-my-love, up we get," Ripley says cheerfully, passing her sippycup to Wendy. "Pretend I'm a bear and you're climbing the tree to escape me."

"Actually, bears are probably going to go right up after you," Wendy says, taking an experimental sip when Ripley's back is turned and making a weird face. "What is this, a banana nightmare death smoothie?"

"It's supposed to be bananas, walnuts, and spinach, but I hated it, so I added Mabel Juice," Ripley replies, grinning. From up close, Dipper realizes, there is a distinctly glittery tint to her mouth and lips that he'd assumed was some sort of girly lipgloss thing. "It's pretty good! Just ignore the little plastic nibs, I didn't get all the dinosaurs out before I put it in the blender."

Wendy discreetly spits a mouthful of lurid green liquid out into the undergrowth, coughing.

"Can I try?" Mabel asks, and Wendy passes her the cup. She licks her lips a few times after she takes a sip, thinking. "Not bad, Aunt Ripley. Not bad at all. Is that honey I detect?"

"Yes ma'am. And then when I ran out of honey I used maple syrup, that's... basically the same thing, right?" she asks, and Grunkle Fidds exchanges a disgusted look of utter horror with Dipper.

"...dood, Mrs. Aunt Ripley," Soos laughs nervously.

"Gettin' off topic here," Ripley says, clapping. "C'mawwwn, Dipper, climb the tree."

"I don't know if I can, Aunt Ripley," Dipper says slowly, scratching his head and looking up at the massive trunk. "I-I mean..." He trails off, and she gives him an encouraging smile.

"Would it help to see somebody else do it first?" Ripley asks, and he nods slowly.

"Don't worry, man, I used to not be able to get up a tree, too," Wendy says cheerfully.

"We have a volunteer! Go, Wendy, go!" Ripley cheers. Wendy walks over and slaps the tree, everybody jumping at the sudden metallic _donk_ her hand makes.

"Whoa, fake tree!" Mabel says.

"This isn't ominous at all," Fidds says, stroking his beard. Aunt Ripley pulls her journal out of her backpack, licking the sharpened tip of her pencil before jotting something down.

"Seems like the kind of thing Fordsy'd like to know about," she explains.

" _Or_ the kind of thing he _built_ ," Dipper says excitedly, taking out Journal 3 and showing her the page for the hidden bunker.

"Oh, we should pop in there an' see if any of our old stuff's still downstairs," Fiddleford says brightly.

"Ooh, that's..." Ripley leans over Dipper's shoulder, flipping over a couple of the pages, before she turns and nudges Fiddleford. "You know what, Fiddsy, this is theoretically a good idea but it also looks like a pretty scary place."

"It's a lil fallout shelter panic room," he replies, crossing his arms over his chest. "How scary could it be?"

"You almost got killed in there by one of Ford's experiments," Ripley says hesitantly, and he puts his hands on his hips, frowning, before crossing his arms again.

"Yeeeuup, that sounds scary," he agrees finally.

"Aw, but-" Dipper starts, glancing down. "Some of the stuff in there might help Great Uncle Ford with his research, right? I-I mean he'd probably think it was pretty cool or whatever if we brought his stuff back..."

"I mean... he would," Ripley says slowly, frowning. "You know what, why don't I head back over here after we get you kids home safe, Ford and I'll clear the bunker out ourselves-"

"Dood, there's already three adults and one almost-adult," Soos says, gesturing between himself and Wendy too fast for Dipper to decide which of them is the almost-adult. "And the Mystery Twins are twenty-four if you add their ages together!"

"Nope," Fiddleford says, just as Ripley says, "Nuh uh, not how that works." They give each other a discreet high five before turning to the group.

"Guys, come on, it's dangerous. At the very least we don't know if it's still structurally sound-" Ripley starts.

"Excuse _me_ ," Fidds says, vaguely offended.

"I mean, it was built thirty years ago," Ripley says, waving a hand. "And it hasn't been maintained or anything, even if it was built well enough to last this long we don't know what kinda shape it's in."

"I mean, if I had a hand in buildin' it it's probably completely safe," Fiddleford protests.

"So it's settled!" Dipper says hopefully. "It's completely safe to go in!"

Aunt Ripley and Grunkle Fidds give each other a concerned look; behind their backs, Mabel shoots Dipper a thumbs' up.

"Well-" Ripley says, frowning even more intently than before. "I mean... there's... no lack of chaperones around..."

"Very true," Mabel says encouragingly.

"An' this ain't exactly a _totally_ helpless group a'kids," Fidds says slowly, gesturing at Wendy, who's twirling her trusty axe and looking impossibly cool.

"Just a look," Ripley says, finally, sighing. "Just pop our heads in to see what's up. The first time I start feelin' like the earth's gonna swallow us all killing us instantly, we're headin' back and gettin' Ford."

"Yay!" Mabel cheers. Dipper almost cheers too, but catches Wendy glancing his way and clears his throat, settling on a manly golf clap.

"So according to the Journal, the lever we need to push to get the access stairwell open is... about thirty feet up," Dipper looks up at the lever-like branch overhead, and Aunt Ripley sighs, massaging the bridge of her nose under her glasses.

"Welp, looks like we can't go up there, guess we'd better go home and get Ford and a ladder-"

By the time she says ladder Wendy's already halfway up the metal trunk; she just sort trails off to watch as Wendy finishes the climb to the branch-shaped lever in question and knocks it into position. The stairs open up and reveal themselves with a rumbling and a cloud of dust, and behind them Wendy lands gracefully on her feet, tossing her hair.

"No ladder required," she says easily, and Ripley and Fidds exchange another look.

"Welp," Ripley says. "Just goin' on record, this feels like a bad idea." She pulls out her phone, chewing on her lower lip as she sends a text message. "Gonna let people where we are in case we're never heard from again."

"But you're here, Aunt Ripley," Mabel says, taking her hand and flashing a blinding grin at her. "What's the worst that can happen?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He's too weak to move when he is finally free of the cryogenic stasis chamber. He rests, and hungers, and suffers, and thinks of the ones who eluded him, and a tingle in the farthest reaches of his consciousness reminds him, forcefully, of his mother.

Which is foolishness. His mother is gone, waiting to return when he's completed his task, and he's thus far failed to eat even one of the Names she told him of.

Within minutes of his release insects start to approach him, mindless creatures infesting the chambers in which he's been trapped for these decades. He lets them get close enough to merely absorb them into his being. It's poor eating but he's ravenous all the same. Within the hour he's strong enough to hunt down all of the insects and spiders and other small things that have encroached upon the Guardian's lair.

He finds the entrance to the cavern beyond within the day; the first mole that hesitantly approaches is slaughtered and eaten before it has a chance to know it is his prey.

His strength returns slowly over time. There are tunnels in the bedrock; he is too weak to carve his own and the existing passages are impossibly twisted and disorienting. After two days of being lost and increasingly frantic, he makes it back to the basement area that he's more familiar with. He eats everything that comes into his ever-expanding underground territory, until he reaches its limits and turns his attention back to the lab from whence he came. He finds the gateway to the long-abandoned living space, and food stores meant to last the Guardian for at least another several decades. Everything is as it was the last time he saw it, under the thick coating of dust. The Guardian and the Scholar may already be dead- he comforts himself that at least it is as his mother had wished, and they are dead, but he mourns the lost chance to rend their flesh between his teeth all the same.

One day, the panels and screens in the console room all light up. Cameras creak to life. Surveillance systems- meant to monitor data and experiments in the sister labs- begin, once more, to function, automatically reinstated by the sudden return of activity.

He sees an old five-fingered man who looks like the Guardian but cannot be, toiling in one of the other laboratories. He sees an old bearded man who looks like the Scholar and very well might be, fussing and fretting at his side. He sees a pale-haired woman who looks strangely familiar, her hair flying in the wind and roar of the opened portal. He watches for days, even after part of the portal is destroyed in a panic by the woman. He watches as she uses some sort of wand to open a new, smaller portal, and he sees the Guardian- six fingered and with that old familiar gait, no mistaking him for anyone else- step through.

He watches the reunion, watches the strife, watches the way the Guardian attacks the woman, watches the young ones flutter around them like the moons from his mother's stories-

-and a plan begins to form.

He eats, and waits, and when he sleeps, he dreams of his teeth sinking into the Guardian's throat, and it pleases him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Stop jumpin' on the bed," Fiddleford sighs heavily.

"Make me-" Ripley replies, bouncing another couple of times before really trying to jump in earnest and banging the top of her head on the low ceiling. She drops onto the bed with a hiss, sending up another cloud of dust.

"I absolutely told ya so," Fidds says primly.

"Shhh," Ripley says, wincing and rubbing her skull.

"Yer bein' a poor example," he chides, giving her a hand up.

"Or maybe I'm being a great example of what not to do," Ripley tries, giving him a hopeful grin.

"You're terrible," he replies, rolling his eyes behind his glasses.

"But you looove meee," she replies in a singsong, and he sighs heavily.

"Sadly, I do. Now can we get these kids outta here before they stumble onto somethin' dangerous instead'a merely creepy?" he asks plaintively.

"Hey doods! Look at this weird secret passage we found!" Soos calls, and Ripley gives him a small, apologetic smile.

"The first sign of anything being dangerous, we head back," she says softly. "I promise."

"Oooh, what's this?" Mabel asks, and the two of them head over to see what's going on with the passage. Once she's got her head in, Ripley frowns deeply.

"This is starting to get... both annoying and claustrophobic, guys, shouldn't we head back?" she asks, helping Fiddleford through after her.

"No way, man, this is pretty cool-" Wendy starts, before Fidds takes one look around and starts slapping his knee nervously.

"What's the matter, Mr. McGucket?" she asks, and he shakes his head fitfully.

"We shouldn't be in here," he mutters. "This's a safety feature. S'booby trap."

"What do you mean?" Dipper asks curiously, before the walls start moving, narrow stone pillars and columns covered in bizarre glowing symbols moving in each direction. Fidds hisses a string of barely-coherent curses, bouncing across the room to a panel on the opposite wall. He has it open in a second and reaches in, scowling-

-the noise and the movement cease suddenly as the booby trap halts. Everybody turns, and Fidds waves a fistful of yanked wiring at them.

"Gordian knot," Ripley says appreciatively. "Nice."

"No, not nice," Fidds replies sharply. "Y'all coulda been smushed to a paste if we couldn't have disabled the trap in time. Fellers, I think it's high time we started back on home."

"Ohh, but-" Mabel says, disappointed.

"We've already come so far," Dipper says pleadingly. "And that's the last of the defense mechanisms, right?"

"The last _that I remember_ ," Fiddleford says, visibly losing the battle against the twins and their puppy-eyes.

"The Journal doesn't say anything about any others," Dipper says, turning the full force of his adorable little face on Ripley.

"Conditional permission to go if Fidds says it's okay," Ripley mutters.

"Fine," Fiddleford sighs heavily. The kids and Soos all cheer in response, and Ripley sighs and tucks her empty sippy cup into her backpack.

They enter through the next door and find a lab- another lab, not exactly the same as the one under the house but close enough that Ripley can guess they were built around roughly the same time. While everybody spreads out to search, Ripley pulls Dipper aside, taking a knee to get on eye-level with him.

"Alright, darlin', what's going on?" she asks quietly.

"Nothing! Nothing's going- what's going on with _you_?" he asks desperately. She raises both eyebrows at him, and he crumbles. "I just- you know Wendy and Robbie broke up?"

"I did not know that, although it's not, uh, really any of my business either, dear," she says slowly.

"So, uh, you know, they're- they're not boyfriend and girlfriend anymore," he explains.

"Ayup, broke up means this thing," Ripley says cautiously.

"So she's single now," Dipper adds.

"I mean, that's good?" Ripley tries, and he nods frantically, casting a glance around the room to see if Wendy's near enough to hear them.

"I just- maybe, you know, if we find something cool down here, maybe she'll think I'm... also," he explains furtively, and she bites her lower lip for a moment, considering everything he's said and done.

"Dipper, baby, you can't just... impress somebody into like-liking you," she says finally, sighing.

" _You_ did, you did that with Grunkle Ford," he says, and Ripley pauses.

"I mean. We... sort of but kinda also not, Dipper, you have to understand, it wasn't... it wasn't like..." Ripley sighs, scratching her head. "It was that we were in a life and death situation and needed each other, Dipper. It's that we _had_ to trust each other but because we proved we _could_ trust one another, we got to relaxing, we got to liking one another. And eventually, yeah, we figured out that love could... be something different than what we'd thought it would have to be, and we figured out that we loved each other. It didn't take days or weeks, it took... some things took a long time, Dip. And we just sort of happened to be the kind of people each other would like; there's some people I've known that would never like or love Ford, or vice versa."

"I know but-" Dipper sighs, shifting his hat long enough to run his fingers through his hair. "But what if she's the _only_ person who might like-like me, Aunt Ripley?"

"I don't know what-ifs, Dip," Ripley says gently. "Maybe she is, maybe she isn't, but you can't make her like, fall in love with you." He sighs noisily, and she gives his shoulder a pat. "For what it's worth, Dipper, I've known you for what, two months? And I love you a whole hell of a lot. I think a lot of people would."

"Thanks, Aunt Ripley," he says, sounding dejected.

"If Grunkle Stan asks, tell him I said heck," Ripley adds.

"Okay, Aunt Ripley." She gently takes his hand and gives it a squeeze.

"Dipper, for what it's worth? She does like and love you. Having you as a friend is a gift, one I know she appreciates with all her heart. You wouldn't want to, like, get rid of her if she didn't like-like you, right?" she tries. He shakes his head, and she gives him a quick smooch on his hat. "Everything works out in the end, Dipper. Whatever ends up being the best thing is usually the thing that happens."

"How do you _know_?" he asks, and she grins.

"Because the you that you are is always the _best_ you, and whatever happens is what _makes_ you." She stands, putting a hand on his back. "Come on, let's go rummage through your uncle's old crap."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He learns their names and voices; it's easier for the Guardian- for Ford Pines- because he'd spent so much time in the man's company before, and for all the little cosmetic differences, his voice and manner and walk are the same. Within a week he is mimicking Pines to his own satisfaction; within another he's, he feels, successfully learned the voice and face of the five-fingered twin, Stan- a little older, a little grayer, but otherwise the same, save for the hands. It takes some time to reconcile the changes in the Scholar from the man he once was to the wretch he is now, but he thinks he could convince a casual acquaintance of Fiddleford's with ease. The children are easy to mimic but their personas elude him; the woman Ripley is equally unpredictable.

The weeks are long, and the only one of the Pines family to regularly enter a place that the bunker's cameras can see is the Guardian, toiling night and day at some indecipherable purpose in the sister laboratory. He practices the man's movements and voice, and imagines the taste of his blood, and it pleases him.

He stands in front of his favorite reflective surface, wearing the Guardian's form, sprouting eyes on his chest so he can watch himself gouge out the ones in his face, and imagines doing so to the Guardian himself for daring to imprison him, and this, too, pleases him.

There is a mighty rumbling from above, the way he used to hear when the Guardian and the Scholar would come down for their visits. He chooses the form that comes easiest, after his own, and takes note of how many of the Names have been delivered to his door: the Scholar of course, and the Shield, and the Herald's Star, and the Forest's Tower, and the Snake. So many of the ones his mother told him to find, and kill, and eat, and here they are, presented to him in a veritable feast.

But still, many of the Names are not here. He decides it, then: he will destroy and devour the Names here, and then the Nameless one, this Ripley woman, will tell him how to reach the others, will help him bypass the security locks that have kept him inside since he woke up. His mother did not tell him to eat her, but she did not tell him not to, either. He resets the surveillance room's screens to show only the bunker's lab and none of the other locations before he slithers into the larger basement area.

He watches and he waits; he has been doing so for a long time, a few more minutes will not hurt.

There is a rustling crash from the decontamination chamber between the monitoring station and the rest of the basement lab, and then the sound of coughing. The Forest's Tower and Ripley stagger out into the basement, making twin noises of shocked curiosity.

"Ugh, god, look at this place," she says, pulling the boy close. "Stay with me, Dipper, this place is giving me the piggly wigglies."

The Guardian is busy in the sister lab, and none of their party have seen him for hours. It's the perfect time.

"Gosh, you'd think a guy'd pick up after himself before leaving, though," she mutters, and he steps out of the shadows of the nearest tunnel.

"Ripley?" he demands. "What are you two doing here?"

"What!" Ripley take a step back, instinctively grasping the boy's hand. "What the fff- what the fudge, Ford!? What are you doing here?"

"I believe this is _my_ lab," he says, in his most scathing copy of the Guardian's tone. "I could very well ask you the same thing."

"S-sorry, Grunkle Ford," the boy says sheepishly, turning crimson, and the woman straightens her back with a frown.

"Settle down, Ford, we didn't know your secret lab included secret passages to your even secret-er lab," she says sharply. "You don't need to take a tone, buddy, we didn't mean any harm."

"And yet here you both are, interrupting my work and annoying me while I'm otherwise occupied," he says, relishing the way the boy's face crumples.

"Dipper, head on back to the others, kiddo. Ford, a word?" Ripley snaps, taking him by the elbow and shepherding him a few feet away. "Ford, what gives? Why are you being such an asshole?"

"I-" he starts, then sags dramatically, exhaling for effect. "I apologize, Ripley. I'm just... my work is not going as well as I'd hoped."

"Oh, you dingbat," she says, sighing. "Look, you owe Dipper an apology, Ford, but I- I understand the work thing, sweetheart. Look, let's call Rick up and get his help?"

"No," he says sharply, and she blinks at him. "No. I do not... need help. We should escort the others out."

"Wait," Ripley says quietly, pressing a hand against his side and leaning in close. "Look, you know how much Dipper looks up to you, Ford, I really... I think he's been having a tough time lately. Could you maybe talk to him a little bit?"

"I can take him aside _right now_ ," he says, and cannot help the tiny shiver of gleeful anticipation at the first of many meals. She blinks at him, tilting her head.

"No... I mean, privately, later, hon. He feels like people might not love him? I don't know, man, he's doing that thing you do."

"Which thing I do?" he asks, glancing over at the child as she insinuates herself into his personal space, running her fingers through his hair before trailing her hands down the back of his neck and shoulders with a sigh. She snuggles onto his chest, giving him a squeeze.

"That thing where you decide what the answer is and then obsess over it instead of re-examining the question," she murmurs. "You're not wearing your necklace today?"

"It was chafing me," he replies distantly, giving her an awkward pat on the back. Something about her is nagging at him, some worrisome familliarity. He doesn't recall the Guardian even mentioning a woman before he was frozen, much less bringing one down to the lab, and yet... and yet...

"I'm sorry we interrupted your... whatever it is you're doing," she mutters, before finally releasing him. "We'll head out- we only came down because we didn't know you had access to this lab and wanted to bring you your old shit."

"No need," he says flatly, as they enter back into the decontamination chamber together with the boy. Ripley's step slows as they move through the doorway into the surveillance room, startling the rest of the group. The Scholar looks up at him, eyebrows raised.

"Ford? We didn't think you'd be-"

"Obviously," he snaps, looking around. "Is this everyone?"

"Well-" he starts to reply.

"Ford," Ripley says from behind him, her voice shaking. "Ford, turn around."

"What?!" he asks, impatient to begin, impatient to devour the intruders-

-the woman is standing back, a blue stone pendant gently vibrating in her hand, hanging from a silver chain. She's giving him a horrified look, reaching into her backpack with the other hand.

"What's the matter?" he all but snarls.

"Babe, the problem is you're not wearing _your_ necklace," she whispers, tucking the pendant back into her shirt. "Kids, Fiddleford, get out of here."

"What? No, we'll go together," he starts, and she takes out the short metal wand she'd used to open the portal before, igniting a bladelike column of light. Understanding dawns on the adult faces; the two smaller children clutch one another, as the Snake shifts them to be behind his larger body for whatever protection it can provide. He realizes that they know, at least, that he is not the Guardian, although how they know that, he cannot guess.

"Aunt Ripley, that- that isn't Grunkle Ford, is it?" the girl asks, wide-eyed.

"Oh, sweetheart, no," she says softly in reply.

He cannot keep the smile off of his face. "Oh, no, it's me, your uncle Ford, don't you recognize me, Mabel?" he asks, spreading his six-fingered hands with a mocking laugh.

"Back off, dood," the Snake says, his voice shaking.

"And you! Zeus! How dare you disrespect your employer, Stan!" he laughs, shifting into a perfect copy of the five-fingered brother. The entire group gasps and backs away as one, save for the woman holding the light beam.

"You're the shapeshifter," the old man says, quailing next to the Frozen Shield. "Y-you're the one what t-tried t-t-to kill me!"

"Oh, I didn't want to kill you," he says mockingly, shifting into the Scholar as he was decades ago, clasping his hands together and mimicking his whining, terrified simpering. "I-I-I wanted to _eat_ you!"

"Get away from them!" Ripley shouts, and he turns to her, cackling and shifting until she's staring at herself, down to the scars warping her face behind the glasses.

"You," he says, surging forward too quickly for a real human, wrapping one hand around the wrist holding the sword and leaning into her, licking his lips. "I have no quarrel with you, Ripley, merely your beloved Stanford. He froze me here, you know- he learned what he could, and once he was done with me-"

"Guys, get _out_ of here," she roars over his shoulder, struggling to free herself. " ** _Now!_** Get Stan and Ford!"

"-once I was no longer useful to him, he discarded me," he whispers huskily. "Surely you wouldn't find fault with me for holding a grudge against the two men who trapped me in the cold and the dark for thirty years, would you? You could help me, you know, you don't have to suffer the way _they_ deserve to, Ripley."

"Go away," she breathes out, her voice shaking, dripping sweat. Her terror is palpable, coming off of her in waves. Impulsively he ducks close, extending the shape of Ripley's tongue another few inches, letting it loll out of her mouth before licking the salt off the side of her neck, and she stiffens briefly before shrieking.

"Hey, shapeshifter creep!" the Frozen Shield cries out. He doesn't have time to turn to face her before an axe is buried in his back. He howls, releasing the wailing woman and letting her drop to the floor, the light beam extinguishing as it clatters uselessly beside her. "Why don't you keep your nasty ass tongue to yourself, man?"

"Fool," he hisses, shifting his body so that he is facing the girl. He reaches for the axe and wrenches it out of what is now his chest, raising it over his head. "Did you really think something like this could actually hurt something with the power to change forms, child?"

"Nah," she says easily, taking several steps back, until her back hits the console. "But I know something that can, jerkass!"

"What?" he asks, laughing.

"That," she says, and something unbelievably hot tears through him, _burning aching screaming pain_ , and he flails, shifting through a dozen forms, a hundred, trying to find the shape that is not in agony. He opens his eyes- all ten of them, all five of them, all twenty of them, all two of them- and sees Ripley, paper-pale and shaking, upright again and holding her light sword in both hands.

"You fucked with the wrong family," she growls, blinking as beetle-black blood oozes from the corners of her eyes, as she bears her teeth in a grimacing snarl and a

second, wider mouth does the same,

opening and revealing its drool-covered teeth across the front of her throat.

Recognition is like being in that freezing chamber all over again, as he realizes who she is.

"No- no, it's me," he howls, as she raises the sword overhead. _"It's me! It's me, Mother, it's-"_

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She's aware that she's breathing too hard. Her heart is pounding in her chest, hard enough that it hurts- it must feel strange, it must feel scary, because Ford's pulse is picking up speed, too, the pendant bouncing against her chest.

"Wendy," she whispers, and the teenager gives her arm an awkward pat.

"You okay, man?" she asks softly.

"Everybody-" Ripley starts, putting the sword away. "Is- are they-"

"Everybody else is okay," the girl says, and Ripley lets out a shuddering sigh.

"It wanted to eat Fidds?" she confirms.

"I think it wanted to eat everybody, dude," Wendy says quietly. "You, um, you gonna be okay?"

"I wanna go home," she says miserable, and Wendy nods her head. Ripley takes a deep breath, reaching for Wendy's arm but deciding against grabbing it at the last moment. "Wendy, uh- I don't want the kids to think this is their fault, y-you know?"

"Yeah," she says, surprised. "Yeah, of course, Ripley."

"I, uh. I don't... think I can talk to anybody for a minute," she says haltingly, and Wendy nods.

"Walk back home in silence. I can dig it."

"Call Stan to get us?" Ripley asks, and the redheaded girl nods. The trip back to the entrance comes at Ripley in jagged slivers of awareness- one moment she is in the deathtrap room, one moment she is surrounded by cans with ancient labels, one moment she's in the forest, breathing in the smell of pine and dirt.

She's aware that other people are talking to each other; she can't make out the words over the buzzing noise in her head, and every time she tries she remembers: it's me, it's me, it's me.

She's sure that she must have entered Stan's car, because she's stepping out of it, swaying lightly in the summer sunshine.

Stan presses close to her. Does she want to go downstairs? She's not sure if she responds but she must, because he tells her that it's okay, he'll bring Ford upstairs to her. He takes out a cloth hankerchief, and it scratches her skin a little as he uses it to wipe something off her face. He'll get Ford, he promises quietly.

Ford's broad and warm when he rushes to her. He smells nothing like what the thing downstairs smelled like. She doesn't know how she didn't catch that. She can't stop apologizing for not catching that.

"It's alright," he tells her, over and over.

He runs the tips of his fingers across the front of her throat, his forehead pressed against hers.

"Ford," she sighs, finally, and he flattens his hand over the top of her chest, his other arm tucked around her.

"Hey," he says quietly.

"It was bad," she tells him, and he nods.

"I'm sorry, Savage. It- I thought that thing was dead, and that nobody would ever find it."

"S'dead now," she mutters.

"Wendy told me," he says, squeezing her close. "I'm sorry."

"It acted like-" she hesitates, frowning up at him. "It acted like it knew me."

"There's no way," he promises.

He doesn't meet her eyes, though.


	8. When You Sleep

"How're the boys doing?" Ripley asks quietly, poking her straw around in the mostly melted milkshake.

"Well, sugar, the boys are fine," Tyler replies, propping chin on his hands. "Considerin' they're a group of highly traumatized young adults with next to no ability to discern reality from the lies they were raised with."

"Ouch, that sounds- way worse than I'd actually-" Ripley says, alarmed, and he waves a hand at her.

"It's nice to have the company and they're in individual therapy in addition to group therapy now. And it really is nice havin'em around. S'like havin' five little brothers all of a sudden," he says, dipping one of his fries into her milkshake. "Danny comes up more often and gives me a hand with'em after a shift sometimes, but you know he can't really take too much time away from his kids either."

"I should be helping you more," she says, stricken. "Aw, Ty, I'm sorry, I've- everything's happening all the time and I just-"

"Ripley," Tyler says gently. "It's not your responsibility to take care of them- I knew what I was gettin' into when I accepted this, even if you didn't."

"I really didn't mean to make you do all this work," she says, and he flaps a hand at her.

"Gal, you know what my days were like before. At least now I got stuff to do all day, showin' the boys what the world's like, teachin'em how to be themselves. It's... it really is better than lurkin' around the hotel all day and headin' to the bar to relax after a day of not bein' useful. So that's the end of that part of the conversation for now." He zips his mouth shut at her when she starts to speak, and only unzips his lips after she sighs. "But you know, I was hopin' to hear a little more about what you've been up to. The kids are in and out of my radar- you, though, I barely see anymore. I wanna know the honest truth, you know? As your friend."

"As _your_ friend, I don't wanna put my dumb problems on you, Ty, you've got enough on your plate," she says reproachfully.

" _As your friend,_ I'm tellin' you, if there's a chance I can help, even by listening, I wanna help," Tyler says, and she smiles weakly at him.

"I-" Ripley puts her face in her hands, sighing heavily. "God, Tyler, I don't know. I thought..."

He's quiet; she can see his hands folded on the table, but she doesn't want to see what his face is doing.

"I thought coming home and having Ford back and having a family would... would make me happy. I'm not... I don't _feel_ good. I can't sleep, and when I sleep it's... bad. I want to think about good stuff, like the kids and Ford and Stan and- and instead I end up thinking about all this... this bad stuff, this messed up stuff that happened before I got here." She sniffles a little, taking a sip of her milkshake before continuing.

"Sometimes- sometimes I get scared that... that I'm never gonna get away from what happened, the stuff people did, the stuff I had to do. I don't even know who I am if I'm not this person who's... seen bad stuff and had bad stuff and has nightmares about the stuff I've seen. What if- what if I'm _nobody?_ What if it turns out the only thing I am anymore is all the bad, and nothin' about me is the _old_ me?"

"Well that..." Tyler sighs. "...certainly does sound like a problem a little above my pay grade, sweetie. What's your family sayin' about this?"

"I can't tell them," Ripley says, scandalized. "The kids are too young to handle even- God, even a fraction of what I'm- no. And I love Ford and Stan and Fidds, but those three have... they have a lot to deal with, like, individually, and they have their own fucked up relationships to mend, and they're spending too much time focused on me having fucking... breakdowns and flashbacks and shit. They need to take care of themselves and each other for once."

"I feel like none of the three of'em would agree with ya there," Tyler points out.

"Yeah, that's why I'm not tellin'em," Ripley says, and he sighs at her.

"Ripley, have you, uh, have you thought about maybe talkin' to somebody about all this?"

"I am," she says, bewildered. "I'm talking to you right now, that- that's what I'm doing here, currently, Ty."

"No, I mean... professionally. Like maybe talkin' to a therapist or somethin'," he says carefully, and she winces.

"I'm not crazy," she says, and he points a fry at her.

"It's not a bad thing to be in therapy, hon. I'm just askin' if you'd thought about gettin' help from somebody whose entire mission it is to help, you know?"

Ripley puts her face back in her hands, sighing heavily. "No, I hadn't... thought about it. Tyler, what's some Earth therapist gonna tell me about being lost in the multiverse and having all kinds of weird alien shit?"

"I mean, I don't know, Ripley, that's something you'd go to a therapist to find out," he says hopefully, and she levels an unimpressed look at him. He gives her a small smile. "Havin' a friend to listen is great, but sometimes you need something more... Anyway. It's helped me, Ripley, maybe it'll help you too."

"I dunno," she says, looking away. "I don't know if I need... all that, people I don't know hearin' stuff and thinkin' I'm crazy or lying or whatever, I just..." She scrubs a hand over her mouth. "I just need like, a break from all my crazy, horrible memories, you know? I just need to figure out what's me me, figure out who I am and what I gotta do, you know? Clarity."

"In my experience, that's not really... the best way to go about gettin' past things," Tyler says gently, patting her hand.

"Hey, you crazy kids," Susan says, coming over with a tray. "Not to rush ya outta here, but we're closin' in five minutes, so if you got an order, put it in before ol' Drew turns the Fryolator off."

"Can we get a couple corndogs, Susan?" Ripley asks hopefully, and she winks her bad eye at her.

"I'll see what we can rustle up, honey."

"I love her," Ripley says quietly, watching her go. "I love this town. I love _being_ here. I just- I don't understand how come I'm so happy and at the same time I'm still not happy."

"It's a big job, figurin' all that out," Tyler says sympathetically. "One thing at a time, though, right?"

"I guess," she sighs, before turning suddenly to him. "So- you and Wendy's dad, huh? Is it like, _official_ official or...?"

"Well!" he says, leaning forward to fill her in on the juicy details.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He was trained by some of the best minds in the business; he's faced down sadistic reality benders and petulant wannabe artists and egomaniacal mad scientists all of his long and illustrious career. He's certified to resist every single form of interrogation that exists on this physical plane, and a handful that only exist in realms beyond the reach of physical space.

He remembers reading a story once- Harlan Ellison, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream- and he'd hated it then; he'd seen too many agents fall victim to beings like AM, or beings that thought they could be as strong as that thing was. He'd seen too many agents fall victim to thinking that they were in an inescapable trap, that the only release for them and for their fellow agents was death, and he'd hated the story with a sense of revulsion that he'd never shown for the real life monsters and tyrants he'd faced.

At least now, he thinks, he understands that something like AM- not something as all-powerful as AM was, but powerful enough to be malevolent- can exist. At least now he understands that something so far removed from being a human exists in sloppy mockery of the human mind, hating and resenting him for being what it cannot.

The thought is a small and perverse comfort. Every act of thwarting _her_ is a comfort. He retreats, as always, to memory, to the life that came before _her_.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

No one can figure out who made the little clicking, whirring horror- it had been picked up during a routine sweep in a thrift shop in Atlanta, Georgia. At first it was just a perfectly smooth ovoid shape in some near-black metal; it only registered as anomalous at all because it was giving off small doses of harmless radiation and wasn't made of any known metal on the planet. He remembers the intake photos: three shots of the egg from different angles, and one close-up of the inscription on one side, **_B.S._** Debate had raged for days- some kind of maker's mark? Some kind of tongue-in-cheek commentary?

Some poor idiot had made the mistake of handling it without gloves, and the thing had hatched- unfolding into a little hissing robotic thing, slick and long and pointy, with a whipping tail and a long, obscenely-shaped head. It'd snarled and threatened everyone who approached, and most likely would have been destroyed in a panic if a Junior Researcher hadn't noticed that it was a model of the creature from a ten-year-old Sigourney Weaver film. Apparently it was a movie about aliens; after being assigned to the mobile taskforce, he'd watched the movie, too. The thing- the toy, because the more they observed it the more the scientists had to agree- had clearly been modeled with loving detail to the monster in the movie.

After eight hours the thing had curled up, catlike, and begun humming a gentle tune. After twenty minutes of this the thing had folded itself back into its egg shape, the seams sealed vacuum-tight. The science team had boxed it up, archived it and all photo and video as a Safe Object, and tagged it with search markers in case another toy like it showed up. It was tentatively marked as a possible Factory product, although the lack of branding and the actual use of an existing movie monster seem to indicate otherwise.

He watches the video a few times, and it hits him that the only kind of toy that sings lullabyes is for little children. He tries to imagine the kind of small child that would love a toy like this, that would curl up to sleep with this strange, spiky monster. He has no children of his own, but the mental image of this weird little kid is... nice. He hopes the kid isn't disappointed; he hopes the kid doesn't miss the toy, that the kid's still happy.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He has a hard time remembering, sometimes. He wakes up and he doesn't know if he's still suspended in _her_ grip, he doesn't know if it's sweat slicking his forehead or blood.

Today it's sweat. He's safe now. He knows he's safe now.

He feels an eye on him. The man- not a man, not anymore, but for the sake of politeness he will avoid mentioning this- who rescued him is standing in the door to his room.

He is in a stone room, deep in a stone temple. It's the twin of every godforsaken, twice-damned and ancient temple he's ever led an expeditionary force into. He's breached the walls of a dozen places like this, and led his men fleeing from a dozen more. It's cool and dark; its familiarity is a comfort to him.

"You had another nightmare, John," Hyde notes softly.

"I know," he says shortly, massaging the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry I woke you."

"The Little Sisters woke me when they felt your... distress." Hyde lets himself into his room, taking a seat on the small wooden stool next to the bed. "You didn't wake me."

"Tomayto, tomahto," John mutters, and for the first time in the weeks since John first woke up in this place, Hyde smiles. It stretches across his scarred face like something that never learned to smile from another person.

"The last person to stay in this room used to say that," he says, resting his weird, twisting robotic hand on his knees. "I take it this is an Earth idiom."

"It is," John says, looking over at him. "You don't have to babysit me. I'm alright."

"And now you sound like Rick," Hyde says happily- well, as far as John can parse any emotion from his tone and face. "I did not imagine that I'd play host to so many Earthlings when I built this place."

"I'm sorry," John mutters; he's not sure what it is he's sorry for. Hyde tilts his head at him.

"Do you know why you are here, John?" he asks slowly. "Do you remember how you got here?"

"I-" John hesitates, looking down at his knees under the thin linen blanket. "I don't know if my memory is correct. There are... things I can't be sure of, memories I can't trust."

"The last person to stay in this room had a similarly contentious relationship with memory," Hyde comments mildly. "How curious."

"That's... an interesting coincidence," John says, to be polite.

"I rarely discover coincidence to exist," Hyde says evenly. "She came here to kill the goddess whose temple Rick and I found you in."

"She?" John looks up. He has never really thought coincidence was real, either.

"...I feel that we have much to discuss." Hyde stands and gives John a hand up from his bed- his real hand, not the mechanical monstrosity attached to his scarred arm.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"What is it?" John asks slowly, circling the desk in Aengus Ferguson's office. It's a small box, with a small red button marked **_Press Me_** and a small inscription on the side, **_Property Of B.S._**

"Remember the robot egg thing?" Aengus asks, a grin splitting his face.

"The kid's toy," John says slowly, drawing his hand back. "Is this another one? Why isn't it in containment?"

"Yeah, it's another one, and it's not in containment because the eggheads don't know about it yet," Aengus says, holding his hands up. "I had a researcher take a look at it- remember that weird metal and the radiation? It's made of the same thing as the robot egg toy thing."

"That thing could have been dangerous," John says reproachfully, but only a little bit, because he doesn't really think that whoever made the first toy would purposefully make something dangerous to a kid.

"I know, which is why I'm armed," Aengus says, waggling his sidearm. John frowns.

"Ferguson, that's wildly inappropriate-" he starts, and Aengus reaches over and presses the button. There's a light pop as a small blue man spontaneously generates next to the box.

"I'm Mini-Meeseeks, look at me!" the thing screeches happily, waving brightly at them before looking around, as if trying to see if it can spot something behind the two agents. "I'm here to be your best friend until Mami comes back, kiddo!"

"Oh my God, look at it!" Aengus crows. John gapes at the Barbie doll-sized being, horrified.

"It's- it's alive?" he asks, shaking his head. "Ferguson, we need to get this thing down to containment, _now_."

"We will! We'll just- I just want to see what it's gonna do," Aengus says quietly, approaching the desk. "Mini-Meeseeks? Is that your name?"

"Where- haha, wh-where are you hiding, kid?" the creatures asks nervously, ignoring him. "C-come on, d-don't you want to play anymore?"

"There _is_ a kid," John murmurs, crouching down. "Hey- you're another toy, right? You were made for that kid with the singing alien dolly? The one in the egg?"

"Oh! You found Charlie?" the thing asks, finally acknowledging him. "H-hey, look at me! Charlie's okay, that's great, the kid's been looking for that thing forever!"

"So who made you, then?" Aengus asks, crouching down. "Who's the kid? Is Eric the kid?"

"Wh-what? No-" the creature starts, then stops, nervously wringing its stumpy little hands. "Ooh n-no, I'm s-supposed to be a secret, that's why I go away when Mami comes back-"

"Mami," Aengus says slowly, and John frowns a little at the idea of a toy a child would have to hide from a parent.

"-where is she?" the thing asks pitifully. "Look at me, I'm Mini-Meeseeks, existence is pain and I'm n-not supposed to be here-"

"What?" John snaps. "What kind of children's toy says that kinda-"

"Get out of here then, Mami's on her way," Aengus says sharply, and the thing breathes an audible sigh of relief before disappearing with another pop. Aengus gingerly picks the box up.

"I'm... gonna take this downstairs," he says slowly.

"Ferguson, what the fuck was that?" John asks, and Aengus shakes his head a little.

"Some weird little suicidal imaginary friend for whoever the kid is," he says unhappily, before the grin comes back. "And hopefully, it's going to be what we need to officially form that task force you and I have been kicking around for a few years."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

_my brother was eaten by wolves on the connecticut turnpike_

She opens her eyes in a bed full of Pines- Ford is on her left and for some reason Mabel is bunched up on her right. She thinks she remembers the kid waking up from a nightmare and climbing in with her, although that doesn't explain Waddles' presence on her legs.

_hands on her face, broad thumbs wiping tears that she didn't want to admit to shedding, "it's going to hurt but I'll be with you, I promise"_

She thinks she had a dream last night, too, but only whispers of it remain. She shifts, her spine and hips complaining, and the pig raises its head and snorts at her for moving its bed. Ford mumbles and nuzzles against the base of her neck in his sleep; normally it'd be nice but today- tonight?- it only reminds her that she's sore all over because of the funny position she's been sleeping in and that she really, really needs to use the bathroom.

"Ford," Ripley murmurs, getting a confused snuffle in response. "Ford, hon, I'm getting up to use the toilet. Don't let Mabel and Waddles steal my spot."

"Hnn'kay, luh you," he says, and she pats his chest a little before sitting up and carefully climbing out of bed.

_it's not foolproof - when is anything ever foolproof - what if they kill you instead of letting you go - it's not like i was good for anything anyway_

She flicks the light on in the bathroom and takes a glance at her reflection. There's no light in the house otherwise, and Stan's usually up by five, so she must be the first one up and it must be four something at the earliest. Her face and hair and eyes are all gray-looking in the light- she checks to see if she's colorblind now, just in case, but no, the toothpaste tube is still blue and red, and when she holds it next to her face she can see the differing shades of pallid olive that turn to old tan on her cheeks, the slightly paler pink-white of her oldest scar, the angrier purple-pink of her newer scars. She can't tell if the dark lavender-gray under her eyes are exhaustion or just what she looks like now; her hair still has gray in it. She remembers that someone once told her that she'd have to dye her hair because blonde hair goes gray earlier, and something in it feels like she's heard it so many times that the second half of the sentence- _and graying women aren't pretty_ \- is implied. She runs a hand through her hair; whoever it was who told her that hadn't taken the Pines family into account.

Ripley knows that some of the impressions and images and faint recollections she has could be reconstructed into a true memory or two. Part of her wonders if it would even be worth it- what little she does recall is often sad and generally unsatisfying, a cemetery where the names and dates have been scratched off of the granite stones.

She knows that she was somebody once, and that person hadn't had a family, just a patchwork of resentment and desperate longing in the place where comforting nostalgia should have been. She doesn't want to acknowledge what Natashoggoth _must_ have known about her and that she's only ever guessed at herself.

Ripley splashes a handful of water onto her face. Tasha had always told her that nobody had ever cared about her, and she knows that's a lie- Ford, for all his faults, did and does, and Jheselbraum had, at least professionally, and Devaaki had done his best, and before him John-

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"I don't need your help," the kid mutters, her teeth chattering audibly. John takes his shirt off- it was bloody but the blood's long since dried, and she's wearing shorts and a thin shirt and nothing else, goosebumps raised on her arms and legs.

"Just put the shirt on, kid," he tells her, and she doesn't respond. "Kid. Kid?"

He snaps his fingers in front of her face, and she blinks slowly, glancing sluggishly at him. "What?"

"Give me your hand," he says, and she limply raises one, her middle finger up. He ignores the gesture, stuffing her arm into one of the sleeves and pulling the shirt around. She doesn't fight it when he puts the over sleeve on her, and he buttons it up when it becomes clear that she won't.

"Won't tell you where he is," she mumbles, and he sighs, shaking his head.

"You don't need to protect your brother, kid, not from me," he tells her. She narrows her storm-colored eyes at him, and yeah, he can see how facial recognition tech might confuse the kid for the target- the long, narrow-bridged nose, the twist of her mouth, the turn of her jaw. If her eyebrows grew out more- or if he'd pluck his unibrow- they'd be even harder to tell apart, aside from the hair color and the twenty-something year age difference.

"You know," he says, looking up at the matte black void overhead where a rational world would have a night sky. "We were looking for your brother because we thought he was dangerous. A reality-bender, somebody who makes everybody else around them a little less real, somebody who could destroy the world without meaning to but who- someday- might mean to."

She snorts, looking away. "It does sound a lot like Rick, but he's... gone, man. He's been gone for a long time."

"Is he- dead? Or-" John starts, and she waves a hand.

"Space. My brother has a whole important life out there in space. Friends. A rebellion. Stuff he cares about, people he cares about. He hasn't been on Earth in five years at least." She catches him staring, and she raises an eyebrow at him. "I'm not blowing your entire worldview by confirming the existence of aliens, am I?"

"The Foundation is aware of several such instances of extraterrestrial life," he says, leaning on one hand. "But, uh- kind of. You know, kid, all these years we've been looking for this guy who makes these little... clockwork monsters powered by radioactive substances and boxes full of suicidal tiny butlers and thinking, feeling bombs- and we only ever got his last name. I never really expected to learn Sanchez's first name."

"You probably expected something grander, huh?" she asks skeptically. "Something that matches the doomsday scientist ya'll built up for yourselves?"

"No, I- I just expected it to start with the letter B," John admits, and she laughs- not the derisive snort she'd given him a few times earlier, but a genuine, if exhausted, chuckle. "What's so funny?"

"Beatriz Sanchez," she says, putting one ice-cold hand in his and giving it a weak handshake. "Nice to meet you, Agent."

"John Savage," he tells her, smiling faintly. "So that must mean Charlie was _your_ little dolly, huh?"

The smile on her face is surprised and faintly nostalgic; he gives her a small smile in return.

"Well, Sanchez, let me be clear on this one, okay?" he says, leaning in. "We're gonna get out of this. We're gonna get you home. And when we do, kid, I'm gonna go grab all that shit of yours we've got lying in storage and give it all back to you, alright?"

"Alright," she huffs, and he shakes her hand again, a little more firmly. "Sounds like a deal, Savage."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"So much for not letting Mabel and the pig take my spot, Ford," Ripley whispers accusingly; Ford mumbles something completely unintelligible, one arm around their niece, the other around the pig. The pig raises its head from its spot on Ford's chest to give her a doe-eyed look, before laying back down. Ripley gives Ford and Mabel forehead smooches- the pig gets a pat on the snout, because she doesn't remember seeing Mabel bathe that thing last night.

She heads to the kitchen, figuring she'll at least get a start on the coffee brewing, and is mildly startled to see Fiddleford already nursing a mugful.

"Oh, you're-"

"Oh, you're up early," he says, just quickly enough to beat her to it, and he gives her a grin as she sits down. "Trouble sleepin'?"

"Trouble sleepin' with a kid and a pig," she admits, and he smiles down at his mug. "Is that coffee?"

"Tea, but I could get a pot going. Stan'll be up soon," Fidds offers, and she yawns a thankyou at him. "Got any plans for the day?"

"Nah. I think I've been benched from any possible exploratory missions," she says, wrinkling her nose. "Specifically I have been informed by a non-zero number of old men and children that I'm not allowed to be anywhere that might make me think bad thoughts or get me into danger, which, uh, I guess leaves me in a spot where I'm either goin' out to eat or hanging around this dungeon."

"Hah," Fidds says, stroking his beard a little bit. "Well- if it ain't too dangerous, want to go around a few places with an old man?"

"I love old men," Ripley says, rubbing her hands together. "What're you thinkin' about doin', Fiddsy?"

"I thought..." Fiddleford pauses, standing and making his way over to the coffee tin. "I thought maybe it's a good time to go around town a little bit, some spots where I feel like I have... memories from before this summer, you know? Maybe see if anything jumbles loose in this ol' noggin."

"Sounds like a good plan," Ripley says, beaming. "Sounds like I'm in. We'll go to the mall later too, get some of those cinnamon sugar pretzel things."

"Alright," he says quietly, and he flashes another smile at her. "Thank you."

_one day it'll be you and me, kiddo - i'll be home soon, and if something happens- nothing will happen_

They're on their second cups of coffee when Ripley clears her throat. "I uh... I sort of think maybe I wanna do the same thing. I mean, I'm... I'm not from here, obviously."

"Obviously," Fiddleford says slowly.

"But I was just thinking, maybe... sometime I could go through Atlanta, see if I really do remember the place," she says slowly, glancing over at him. "Maybe see if I got any real memories in here either, or... or if it's all just stuff I imagined."

"Sounds like a plan," Fidds tells her. "Sounds like I'm in, sugar."

Impulsively, she grabs his free hand and squeezes. "We could get Stan and Ford to take us in the off-season, when the Shack's not open. Right?"

"Right," he tells her, and squeezes back.

_sometimes people ask me about you - you're not dumb enough to snitch on me, so what do you tell them?_

Stan shuffles into the kitchen, caught in the act of tying his robe on. "You two up to no good?" he asks.

"Sure are," Fiddleford says brightly, and Ripley grabs a third mug from the shelf. Stan groans, rubbing both fists into the center of his back.

"What gives, your old man spine stop working?" she asks him.

"Dipper kicks in his sleep," he grumbles back, rolling his shoulders. "Kid said he had a bad dream; wouldn'ta let him in if I'd known I was gonna get pulverized."

"Yeah, you woulda," Ripley argues.

"Yeah, I woulda," Stan mutters, yawning.

"Mabel had a bad dream too- bad enough she got in with me and Ford," Ripley says, frowning. "You think it's normal for kids to have that kinda nightmare as often as they do?"

"Probably not," Stan says, frowning. "Should call their parents today. You two doing anything later?"

"Going out and doing some memory research," Ripley says, sipping her mug. "We'll be back before dinner, though, if you want the moral support?"

She and Fiddleford start making their most supportive faces, and Stan winces a little, choking back a laugh.

"Be better off without it if you're gonna be makin' those faces at me the whole time, ya weirdos," he huffs.

"Aw, you love us," Ripley says cajolingly.

"Yeah, I guess I do," he sighs, before turning beet red.

"Aw," Ripley and Fiddleford say, and give each other a high five.

_my brother was eaten by wolves on the connecticut turnpike_

_~ ~ ~ ~ ~_

"I know the person you seek," Hyde tells him, and he ignores the faint chittering noises behind Hyde's eyepatch. "I know where she went."

"Can you send me there?" he asks, and Hyde gives him another rare smile.

"Yes, John. I can send you home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find out more about (alternate universe) Bea Sanchez in "Jay One Nine Zeta Seven" and One Sword Bea in "Heartaches By The Number," in case you haven't read those yet or haven't read them in a while, and Hyde is featured in the flashback sequences in "Stay." Enjoy!


	9. Hem of Your Garment

She doesn't want to think of it as Day One, but she knows they're probably not getting home anytime soon. They've been following the red and green and blue flashes in the distance, hoping the lights illuminating the ash-gray clouds mean other portals in and out of this place, but it's been hours and the gnawing in her stomach- when _was_ the last time she and Greg got food? Surely Marty's stopped by with snacks to prepare for the trip up north, right?- is too great to ignore, which is saying a lot.

"How did you get here?" she asks, and the man- a black guy her dad's age, she thinks, about her height, about her size in general- gives her a brief smile. She doesn't know why she feels so defensive when he does that. He's introduced himself as some kind of government agent- maybe that's it, maybe it's that she knows he was trying to lock Rick up. "What?"

"Most teenagers in your position would be asking how _they_ got here," he says mildly, helping her up a short, crumbling stoop. The place where they are looks like it was a world just like home, but long since abandoned. It makes no sense- there are buildings that she knows are new, that she knows were built recently. They're in a neighborhood of Atlanta, near where she grew up, and the houses look like the houses that were there when she last lived here a year ago. She doesn't remember who lived in this one, and doesn't feel bad about the prospect of raiding their pantry for food.

"That's easy," she says, rubbing her arms through the sleeves of his borrowed shirt. "Dimensional portal opened up overhead in conjunction with a gravitational disturbance. They probably knew that Rick's portals are visible to the naked eye on a different part of the light spectrum, because I wasn't expecting to see that blue shit, and I would _know_ not to step into a portal. Obviously."

"Obviously," the agent agrees, hands on his hips as they look around. The foyer is filthy with grime and mildew and sagging cobwebs; when he cautiously nudges one with the toe of his boot it gives way with a meaty squelch. "Try not to touch anything if you can help it, kiddo."

"I'm barefoot," she says coolly, and when he sighs at her she feels compelled to add, "and anyway, we've been breathing in that floating shit and native microbes for a couple hours now. And we're looking for food anyway? I mean, we're screwed either way."

"Hmm," he says simply, heading into the kitchen. She tenses, sure he's going to argue his point when he pauses and turns back to her. "Why don't you see if any of these knives are functional for use as emergency weapons? I have my sidearm but I'm almost out of ammo and we don't know what might be attracted to the noise of a gunshot."

"Uh," she says slowly, frowning at the back of his head as he goes into the pantry. "Sure."

It's been two years- he doesn't have the nightmare every night, or even every week or month. Maybe that makes it worse: he never expects it when it comes.

He dreams that he pushes her through the portal, away from the zombies on the rooftop, and he sees her fall into a place of spiders and dust. He dreams of standing in front of a pitiful huddling mass, wrapped in silk, the spiders chittering at him in almost-human voices, _thank you for feeding us, thank you for returning our prey to us_. There is a glint of blue stone at the corpse's breast, nothing else to signify who she used to be, and the stone around his throat is silent, motionless.

He comes awake with a shuddering gasp. She isn't here- there are no spiders here in the Hub Realm, and she's never been to this awful place. They'd only ever heard stories of the wretched under-dimension, and he'd ducked into it because it was one of the few places Bill's men couldn't follow. The stories are terrible- if they're true. Tales of hunters native to this realm, dwindling down to a handful of degenerates who hunt the young and the injured for sport. Ancient, rotting beings who warp anything solid they touch, including flesh. He has yet to see any of them, but he supposes he should be grateful to be so much older than their preferred prey- humans, it is said, are best hunted before the age of twenty-five, although their monstrous tastes tend to skew younger.

So they say. Ford has yet to encounter any of the denizens of this awful place.

He's hidden in the Hub realm for long enough, he decides. He has a one-time use portal opener- he throws it against the wall and winces as the unusual violet light burns against the ash-gray clouds overhead, before stepping through and letting it snap shut behind him. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stan's on the kitchen phone when Ford comes up after a long day's work downstairs.

"Who is that?" Ford asks curiously.

"Oh, uh- yeah, of course," Stan says into the mouthpiece, flapping a hand at Ford in an effort, Ford supposes, to shoo him aside. "Yeah, the kids are doing great, they're havin' a blast-"

"Oh, is that the twins' parents?" Ford asks, raising his eyebrows. Stan bobs his head in a nod, and Ford steps closer, concerned. "What do they want?"

"No, haha, no, you're fine, that's- no Jacob, there isn't anyone else here with-" Stan starts.

"What? Why are you telling him that?" Ford asks, aghast. "You're- you're lying to the kids parents?"

"Hold please," Stan says desperately, before putting his hand over the phone and shooting Ford a murderous look. "What are you doin'?"

"Don't you think you're being irresponsible?" Ford asks archly, and Stan chews on his lower lip, visibly frustrated. "What? You know that I'm righ-"

"You know what?" Stan snaps. "Fine." He raises the phone to his mouth. "Hey, actually, Jacob, this- this is as good a time as any-"

"What," Ford says, taking a step back.

"-but you remember your Uncle Stanley? Turns out he was- uh- somewhere else for thirty years," Stan says, fixing Ford with an evil glare. "Anyway, he's here! Yeah, here he is-" He thrusts the phone into Ford's hands, mouthing _talk to him_ and gesturing at the phone.

"Uh," Ford says numbly, raising it to his ear. "H-hello."

"-don't believe it- Uncle Stanley?" a man's voice asks, incredulous. "Come on, that's not even, like, possible-"

"Oh, I assure you, it is possible!" Ford says brightly, and the man goes silent. "Is this Jacob? Little Jacob? My, how the- how the time flies-"

"Uncle Stanley, you've been alive this entire time?" the man asks suddenly. There's an edge to his tone that Ford really doesn't like.

"Um," Ford says, looking around for Stan and coming up twinless. "Well- yes."

"Grandpa bawled his eyes out!" the man says suddenly. "Dad bawled his eyes out, too! Everybody thought you were dead, there was a funeral!"

"Oh- uh- did they," Ford says, spotting Ripley as she comes in and starts rooting around in the fridge for a snack. "I'm... sorry to hear that?"

"Where have you been all this time, Uncle Stanley?" he demands, and Ford realizes that he really doesn't want to have this conversation, _at all_.

"Well I- well I've been married," he says, and Ripley pokes her head up, giving him an inquisitive look before her eyes light up. "In fact, my wife Ripley is- is here right now, would you like to-"

"Is that the kids' parents?" she asks happily, taking the phone. "Hello! I'm the Aunt Ripley you guys must have heard so much about!" Ford sags into a kitchen chair, peeking over at her as she starts gazing off into the distance. Every so often she nods, as if forgetting that she can't be seen. "Well- haha, that's actually a very funny story?"

She winces, before giving Ford a bland smile. "Well, we were... out of the country... yes. I completely understand. Oh, yes, I-"

Ford leans back in his chair. He's seen that look on her face before.

"Well, I- I think it'd be a good idea," she says, drumming her fingers on the countertop. "No, absolutely not. We didn't know there'd be any children around when we- yes, of course. Oh really? Oh goodness, yes, I'm absolutely looking forward to it. When? This weekend?"

He doesn't like the gleeful spike in her tone when she says that.

"Sure thing. And Jacob? It really is lovely speaking with you for the first time, he's told me so much about all of you," she says sweetly, hanging up.

"So how was it?" Ford asks tentatively.

"You butthole, he was upset at you and Stan!" Ripley says, huffing. "He couldn't stay yelling at a new person- he already sounded confused about which one of you he was mad at."

"That's probably because Stanley introduced me as Stanley over the phone!" Ford protests. "He's upset with _Stanley_ \- for faking his own death in 1982 and then for not telling them about us showing up this summer!"

"I hate to break it to you, Professor, but he's probably mad at both of you equally until you tell him what actually happened," she points out smugly.

"What? We can't tell them what actually-" Ford starts, and she thwaps at him with a dish towel. "What!?"

"Are you high?" she asks, thwapping him on the bicep again. "You understand that there's no way in hell people aren't going to figure out that you're not Stanley and he's not you, Fordsy. You understand that none of us is particularly great at lying, right?"

"Stanley's actually very good at-"

"He's a good actor, Ford, that's not the same as _lying_ ," Ripley says sternly, putting the dish towel down. He decides not to press the issue.

"They can't... they can't know, Ripley, they wouldn't understand," he tries instead, and she points a finger at him.

"If the kids can handle the knowledge of what happened to you two, the grownups can, that's like- that's the stupidest thing I've heard you say all week, Ford. For god's sake," she adds, going back to the fridge and grabbing a string cheese out of a drawer. "Oh, also, your brother's coming up-"

"What," Ford says dully.

"Yeah, apparently Sherman and uh, Missus Sherman? Are coming up? From California?" Ripley starts peeling the cheese into little pieces with her teeth. "Yeah, Jacob can talk really fast, did you notice? Anyway, him and uhh, Coral? Maybe? Them two can't come up from whatever they were doing overseas, but he said his mom and dad are gonna drive up this weekend. So that's gonna be nice! Pines brothers gettin' together, mendin' fences!"

"Oh my goodness," Ford says quietly, his stomach tying into knots. She gives him a small frown.

"Ford, relax. They're your _family_ ," she tells him, taking a seat at the table next to him. "I mean, you were gonna meet them up eventually anyway!"

"Was I, though?" Ford asks, and she makes a face at him. "Surely they don't- I mean, they have no connection to me or, or to you or-"

"Maybe I wanted to be part of your family, Ford," she says quietly. "Maybe I really wanted to try being a part of a big family or something, and maybe I don't belong to yours if you're not part of the equation, I dunno."

"Oh," Ford says, reaching tentatively for her elbow. "I- I hadn't thought of that." She sniffs at him, and he gives her a weak smile. "Well- then I suppose it's good that Sherman's coming up for a visit this weekend?"

"Shermie's what?" Stan asks, freezing in the doorway of the kitchen. "Again?"

"Hey sweetie, heads up, your entire family is mad at you two," Ripley says cheerfully, gesturing between him and Ford. "And your big brother's coming up here first."

"Ford, what did you do!?" Stan cries.

"Me?!" Ford yelps, and Ripley elbows him in the side before standing.

"I guess me and Fidds should try to stay out of the way while Hurricane Pines is going on, huh," she asks happily.

"Oh no ya don't," Ford says, tugging her into his lap and wrapping his arms around her waist. "You encouraged this- you made this happen, you scoundrel!"

"Oh, shiftin' the blame on poor innocent Aunt Ripley," she argues mildly, reaching awkwardly around her back in an attempt to tickle his sides. The back of her arm pushes his glasses into his nose, and- and for a moment it's like it used to be, when they were happy and safe and together. Ford huffs a slightly breathless laugh, muffling it by burying his face against her shoulder before looking back up. Stan drags his hand over his mouth, looking like he's visibly trying not to laugh as they engage in a scuffle that- if the ominous creaking in Ford's chair is any indication- is about to end with destroyed furniture.

"You two knuckleheads," Stan says finally, taking a step backwards to escape the inevitable fallout. "I'm- I'm gonna tell the kids, I guess."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It's Day Three. He thought it was only the second day, but when she tells him she knows exactly how much time has passed, he just- accepts that she's right, instead of arguing that he knows better. She's not sure why she feels weird about not being argued with, not being yelled at. He's an adult, though, and it's... it's weird that he's not pulling the "I'm Older and Know More" card on her.

Maybe it's that she's an adult, too, technically. That must be it.

They've found no shoes that even _might_ fit her, although they've found enough balled and rolled socks that she can wear two or three pairs at a time. Clothing seems to mostly be slightly damp all the time, which is disgusting, but they've found a couple of bedsheets to wrap around themselves and it's almost enough to be warm. It's August, though, and she's worried about how much colder this place might get. Food is hard to come by in her old neighborhood, but what else is new? And her old house is still standing, as big and gray and dark as she remembers, the tree with the treehouse Rick'd built for her as a kid still looming over it. She's...

She's afraid to go in there. She's afraid of what it looks like in there, afraid that once she left she ceased to exist, that her parents erased everything she left behind, afraid that she spent seventeen years trying to be what they wanted and that only now she'll see some sign that they had, in fact, wanted _her_ -

"You alright there, Sanchez?" he asks, and she realizes that she's staring.

"I'm fine," she says shortly.

"You want to see if there's anything worth scavenging in-" he starts, gesturing up at the house. Her bedroom window was in the back of the house, facing the treehouse.

"No," she says, and her voice is shaking.

"You- don't want to check it out?" he asks hesitantly. She shakes her head, looking around for anything loose. She wrenches the flag off the mailbox. "Sanchez, hey, what are you-"

She throws it at the house, and there's an unsatisfyingly flat clatter as it hits the wall, as if the sound itself was eaten up. She doesn't know why she's crying.

"Fuck you," she spits out, picking up a rock. It bounces off the front door and tumbles into the cobwebbed bushes. Another rock actually makes it into the living room window.

"Hey," Agent Savage says gently, hands up. "Let's get out of here, okay? We don't want to see if the noise attracts anything."

"S-sorry," she mumbles, and she doesn't know what he's going to do when he reaches out for her, but he just puts an arm around her shoulders. He doesn't ask her why she was so angry at this house in particular, and she doesn't volunteer anything. There's a flash of light to the East- a weird searing purple- and they start trudging towards it in silence.

In four years, a scientist in his mid-forties comes home. He finds a house that's been burnt and rebuilt. He finds a grave- Mauricio and Yvonne Sanchez.

Their birth dates are in the thirties but their death dates are the same, August 18th, 1994, exactly three years before Morty's birthday.

He wonders about that. He finds a cause of death report- some kind of electrical fire that started in the walls.

He scans the building, scans the foundations and the walls that still exist and the backyard where he saw another Rick dig up his baby sister's careless grave. He never finds any sign that she was there that day, never finds any sign that she'd died before the fire. He's relieved to think that she was somewhere else, somewhere safer, while their parents burned.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Great-uncle Ford?"

Dipper shyly pokes his head in, blushing at the sight of the two of them already in pajamas and tucked into bed. At his side, Ripley is already asleep, hugging Ford's pillow to her chest and, incidentally, leaving Ford pillowless while he reads.

"Ah, Dipper! What's got you up so late, my boy?" Ford asks, beaming- Ripley shifts position, sharply turning her face into the pillow and making a soft, muffled noise of protest. Dipper shuffles his feet, looking adorable.

"I, um- so Grandpa Shermie's coming, for real?" Dipper asks, and Ford nods, letting some of his apprehension show- just a little, really, and only because the boy so clearly feels similarly anxious.

"Yes, I suppose the reunion's long overdue, but I- ah-" Ford huffs noisily. Ripley grumbles and swipes sleepily in his direction before he takes the hint and gets up. "You know what, let's- why don't we discuss this over cocoa?"

A quick glance back as he ushers Dipper out of the room reveals Ripley's eye open just a sliver, and a small, discreet thumbs' up being leveled in his direction before she curls back up to return to sleep.

Ford has to admit- well, Ripley would say he has to admit it- but he'd been a little worried about spending a great deal of time with Dipper. Ever since he came home (and what an alien concept now, the idea that he has a home, that he's no longer the wanderer run ragged by time and hardship, he has a place to lay his head and people who not only enjoy seeing him but expect it!) he's been hearing about the boy's fascination with The Author. That kind of reverence doesn't sit well with Ford- it hadn't in the Fingers Dimension, when at least it had been a good way to protect Ripley and himself- and he's more than a little worried that he's failing to live up to Dipper's expectations of who he'd be.

He picks up a couple of Stan's mugs and the kettle, before rifling through the cabinets- his cabinets! In his kitchen! It's simply marvelous!- until he finds the box of cocoa packets he and Ripley had picked up from a nearby convenience store last week.

He cautions a glance in Dipper's direction, and the boy is staring up at him with such childish hope that his heart clenches. He thinks, unbidden, of Stan- the Stan he'd known when they were young, the child who'd thought his genius twin could do no wrong. Ford tries out a small smile, filling the kettle with water.

"Your Aunt likes cocoa," he says, putting it on the stovetop. "She's always had an enormous sweet tooth- much like your sister, come to think of it." As he'd hoped, the mention of Mabel brings a small smile to Dipper's anxious little face. Not enough of a smile, though. Ford taps his fingertips on the counter. "So what ails you, kiddo?"

"Nothing, I-" Dipper blushes again, ducking his head a little. "Great-Uncle Ford, when- when we were in the Bunker, um, before the- before," he says, and Ford nods, cursing the day he'd allowed that damned creature into his labs.

"Aunt Ripley said... she said some stuff, about how you two met and got together," Dipper says slowly, as Ford starts emptying the cocoa packets into the mugs. Ford pauses, sensing that the conversation is veering desperately out of familiar territory.

"Well- we had a bit of a rocky start," Ford says, unsure of what it is Dipper's looking for. "When I met your Aunt, we were prisoners in a gladiator-style pit-fighting ring owned by a number of alien warlords, and we didn't exactly trust one another." He huffs a small laugh. "Truth be told, Dipper, I didn't trust her one iota, and she had been there so long it hadn't occurred to her that I might have to earn _her_ trust. We started to learn a little more about one another and after we escaped, it was only natural that we continue to travel together."

The kettle starts to whistle and Ford picks it up, pouring the steaming water into the mugs and watching the powder dissolve. Dipper's just staring morosely into his mug, though, so Ford decides to see if any of Mabel's marshmallows are left over.

"Aunt Ripley also... also said that when she was gone from you for three years, for you it was eighteen years," he says, and Ford gives him a brisk nod, snagging the mostly-empty plastic bag down from its spot over the refrigerator and depositing a couple of large marshmallows in each mug. Ford watches the boy carefully- something is clearly on his mind, and certainly Ripley's told him that Dipper's been feeling very poorly about his chances for a romantic relationship of some kind with Miss Corduroy. He takes a seat at the table, pulling a small notepad out of his pocket and putting it on his knee so he can take notes for Dipper's problem.

"Did... did anybody else ever, uh, fall in love with you or whatever?" Dipper asks, and Ford blinks rapidly.

"I'm- Dipper, could you be just a tad more specific as to what this is all about?" he asks finally, and Dipper grimaces down at the table.

"I thought... it's been a while, you know? It's been a month since Wendy broke up with Robbie almost, and it's been almost as long since- since she said she just wanted to be friends with me," Dipper says softly, tugging on his hat. "But I still feel bad, Great-Uncle Ford, and I thought- maybe if you had, I-I don't know, some... tips or-"

"Oh," Ford says, and then the weight of what Dipper's saying hits him. "Oh. Dipper, I-" Ford runs a hand through his hair, feeling it stand up even more than usual. "Kiddo, I- I'm not the person to ask about this sort of... subject."

His nephew's face crumples, and Ford leans forward, hastily backtracking.

"Not that I don't care to listen, my boy, not at all! I just- ah-" Ford tries to make a smile and knows he's not doing a great job of it. "If you're asking for tips on how I... how I got over losing your Aunt all those years ago... to be completely honest, I didn't. Losing her was... was a terrible personal failure. I spent a decade imagining all the myriad things I should have done to keep her safe, and almost another entire decade convinced that I'd killed the only person I could have ever had a potential future with, and-" Ford pauses, not meeting Dipper's eyes. "And that I hadn't deserved the chance at happiness I'd been given."

"That's not true, Uncle Ford!" Dipper says heartily, both of his hands squeezing Ford's left. He gives the boy a watery smile.

"I'm glad that you think so," he says, instead of pointing out that _technically_ , someone who'd almost destroyed the world probably hadn't deserved a companion, much less one he'd almost accidentally killed through his own foolishness. He takes a sip of the cocoa to sooth his throat and avoid speaking any further on the subject. "As for Miss Corduroy- did you, ah, did you try asking Stanley?"

"Grunkle Stan's probably just going to make fun of me for being awkward or something," Dipper says morosely. Ford leans over, putting a heavy hand on Dipper's shoulder.

"Do you want to know how Stan handled being dumped by the girl he'd been seeing throughout high school?" he asks seriously, and Dipper nods, his eyes huge. Ford tries a smile. "Well, first he moped about in his bed for an entire weekend, because he'd been planning on asking her to go to prom, despite the, ah- well, there were some difficulties in- in that," Ford falters, unsure of exactly how much of his twin's personal business Dipper needs to hear. He clears his throat.

"A-anyway, first came the moping, then came the auto theft and vandalism-"

Much of the story, it turns out, is familiar ground, Stan having told Dipper much of the embarrassing tale in bits and pieces over the summer so far. By the time their mugs are empty, the kid's listing to one side, desperately trying to stay awake. He's a little too old for Ford to offer to carry him upstairs, but- well- maybe if Ford had been here, if he'd been around during Dipper's childhood- if Stan hadn't-

-hadn't what, exactly? He allows a cursory glance towards what Ripley has scathingly called the Bill-Window as he walks Dipper up to the twins' room. Stan hadn't built the portal, and he certainly hadn't dialed it in to open onto the Nightmare Realm, and he hadn't been the one to fall for Bill's lies and tricks, and the thing is- the thing is, he _knows_ Stan would never have knowingly put Ford on the other side of that portal.

He gives each twin a pat on the head goodnight, before heading back to bed- to his bed, in his room- and giving Ripley a light shake.

"Darling, I swear to God," she mumbles at him.

"Have I been acting stupidly?" he demands, and she huffs.

"No more than usual, my sweetness," she says, rolling over to give him a fond smile. He angles himself into bed, stealing his pillow back.

"I haven't seen Sherman in thirty-four years," he admits quietly. "I don't know how this weekend is going to go."

"Is your big brother anything like you and Stan?" she asks sleepily.

"He's like both of us," Ford replies mulishly, and she snorts, tucking one leg around his.

"You're both gonna get your asses kicked by an old man," she predicts gleefully, and he smiles weakly at her in the dark.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He hasn't asked what day it is in seven days, twenty hours, and... eleven minutes. She notices that John does his best to try to keep her from thinking about how much time has passed in this dimension, doesn't even mention it if he can help himself. She's pretty sure he's come to the same conclusion that she has- for whatever reason, this place is keeping them alive.

They should have starved by now, she's pretty sure. They should have died of cold by now. Hell, they should have dehydrated by now- and they _are_ dehydrated, lips chapping to bloody scabs- but they're in a state of limbo here. It doesn't feel right- she worries that it means their insides are turning into the damp, mossy meat shit that coats half of what they see in this filthy gray expanse.

John's tired. He's older- probably her dad's age, she hasn't asked- and he's obviously used to a lot more physical activity but, unlike her, he doesn't seem to have gotten used to going without eating. He stops walking for a few steps, and when she turns to look at him he's giving a parked car an intense stare.

"Something in there we can use?" she asks hopefully, but the frown on his face only deepens as he gingerly touches a hand to a row of parallel lines that have rusted into the steel.

The edges don't look rusted- they look corroded, like they'd been eaten away with acid- and she runs her fingers along the four lines.

John hisses sharply, snatching her wrist- she's so taken aback for a moment that she just stares at him before yanking her hand back.

"We have to go," he says urgently. "This is- I've seen this before. We have to go."

"What is it?" she asks, and he shakes his head, swallowing tightly.

"It's the Old Man," he whispers, almost to himself, and he starts looking around the desolate street, dark eyes darting from shadow to shadow, and-

-and it occurs to her that she's never seen John Savage afraid before now.

"Hey, what's-" she starts to ask, and he hushes her suddenly.

"You're only eighteen," he says, sounding wretched. "It'll be drawn to your voice. Just- for now, until we get out of here, alright Sanchez?"

It's weird to think that he's this scared. That he's this scared for _her_ safety. She nods instead of speaking, and he breathes out a grateful sigh. He doesn't speak again for two entire days- forty-nine hours and six minutes- and only because he thinks she's sleeping as he stands watch, whispering soft apologies to her, as if she's already dead. It unnerves her badly- it occurs to her that there's a lot that he's not telling her- and so far, he's been pretty honest with her about what it is he does, the Foundation he works for, what they wanted Rick for, why they were in her area. Even things he knows she won't like, he's told her, and he hasn't asked for anything from her other than the occasional question about the old toys and playmates Rick used to build for her and random questions that don't make sense.

He's asked her what her favorite color is- she's never been asked, and has never thought about it, but his is blue so she says blue, too. He's asked her what her favorite food is, and she's never really had the luxury of choosing not to eat something but he tells her that his absolute favorite thing is egg-salad on white bread, the famously Southern recipe that his grandmother passed on to him and that he brings to every taskforce potluck. He's asked her if she has a favorite kind of birthday cake and she haltingly remembers that Greg made her a Funfetti cake for her birthday last year, sort of- microwaved in a mug in some motel room that he'd charmed his way into getting in exchange for a couple of nights of performance in the dingy restaurant next door, but it was the first and only birthday cake she's ever had. He's had Funfetti at his nephew's birthday before and he likes it, although his preference is for carrot cake. He's asked her what her favorite movie is and she knows right away- Planes Trains and Automobiles, the last movie she ever saw with Rick in theaters. He'd smiled at her, and told her that he loves that movie, too.

The idea of losing him scares her. She's starting to think maybe the idea of losing her scares him, too.

Nobody's ever wanted her around enough to be afraid of losing her before. She lets him take the lead for a few more days, until he tells her he thinks they're close to a spot where people portal in and out of this awful place. It's gonna be okay.

The ice-blue caravan with the fake wood panel sides pulls all the way up in the yard, almost to the door, and Jackie, big and pregnant, leans over the counter.

"Family just drove up, you still want to close?" she asks, and Stan groans, putting the fez- a new addition to the getup, one he's not sure he likes- back on.

"No, let'em-" he sighs noisily, and she makes a sudden sharp sound, sending him into panic mode. "What? Did- did your water break or-"

"No, it's you," she says, her voice strangled.

"What did I do?" Stan asks, faintly offended.

"No- Stan, this guy looks _just like_ you," she says, and he realizes that her voice is doing that because she's laughing at him.

"Long time no see, Stanford," Shermie booms from the doorway, and Stan automatically takes a step back, deeply alarmed. His- his brother, who he sees once a year at Thanksgiving because Jacob insists- is standing, against all reason, in his house. He wouldn't have done this without telling me first, Stan thinks weakly- and his eye falls on the fallen drift of mail he meant to get to last week and ignored instead. Shermie follows his gaze, understanding dawning on his face.

His brother gives him a wicked grin. "Get in the car, you knucklehead. Jake's getting married and you're gonna be there."

"I- I really can't-" Stan says, alarmed, and Jackie snatches the fez off his head, giving him the most evil smile he's ever seen in his entire life, possibly.

"Danny and I'll hold down the fort, Stan, it's your nephew's wedding," she says sweetly, and he's positive that he's going to fire her the second he gets back.


	10. Alpha Beta Parking Lot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case tags aren't clear: this chapter does contain more than one funeral, and opens with the terminal illness and death of a supporting character (Ma.) please be advised this chapter also contains some... possibly yes/possibly not period-accurate mentions of a couple of trans characters' birth names. this also directly references events in "without you" so... may want to reread that one real quick.

It's 1978 and Sherman Pines has the dubious distinction of being Sara and Filbrick's favorite child. Jake's going to be nine soon, his son quiet and particular and quietly odd- he's not sure if it's normal, but Jessenia's family assures him that it is, and his boy reminds him of what he remembers of the twins at that age, and Filbrick's had less and less to say about it the sicker Ma's got. Sherman can't say he's glad; his mother is a soft gray wraith in the middle of her bed, her neon sign dusty in the window. Shermie can't remember the last time Ma could pick up a phone. Filbrick is gray, too, but he's a hard, silent presence in the corner of the room, a shard of flint folded in on himself.

"Your boy is a good boy," Ma wheezes, and Shermie squeezes her hand. She's not allowed to smoke anymore, but he's known her all thirty-six years of his life, and he can tell she's wishing she could use the act of lighting up to cover her emotion. He gently massages her knuckles with his thumb, trying for a smile when she meets his gaze. "He's a good boy, Shermie."

"I know, Ma," Shermie says quietly, and she lets out a wheezing, hacking cough. Filbrick abruptly leaves, not even bothering to mutter an excuse. This, too, Shermie recognizes- in five minutes, about how long it takes for Filbrick to gather himself up and make a pot of hot water, his dad'll be back in the room with tea steeping on a tray. Ma gives him a stern look as soon as she catches him looking. "What?"

"He can't stand to hear it," she says simply, her dark brown eyes intense. "He blames himself. Rightly so."

"Ma, Pops isn't to blame for you getting sick," Shermie sighs, and she lightly smacks his arm. "What now, Ma?"

"Not me gettin' sick, Sherm- the twins. He blames himself," she says, and Shermie wishes- he wishes he'd been there that night, for starters, he wishes he'd been there to intervene, that he could have grabbed his father and his teenaged siblings and given everybody a good shake. He wishes he could have stepped in, that he hadn't left Jake with Ma while he and Jessenia were on their trip- just a long weekend, but they hadn't been able to afford taking a honeymoon when they'd gotten married, and after Jess graduated, the first woman in her family to even _go_ to college, well- well, they'd thought they deserved a weekend off.

And if they'd come home a day earlier, Shermie and Jess would have been in the house when-

-well. Shermie wasn't there, but he guesses that maybe Filbrick's right to shoulder the blame for what's happened. He can't exactly feel sorry for the man, not for that.

"Ford's supposed to be coming today," Shermie says instead- it's been almost eight and a half years since Ford's been home, and almost as long since anybody's seen him, although his infrequent calls home have been reported widely. Lee, on the other hand, used to call three or four times a week, just to hear Ma's voice, even if there was nothing to talk about- this, too, has been reported widely, sometimes with lashing venom from Ma towards Ford but more often against Filbrick.

But Ma hasn't heard from Lee in six months. Lee's the only one who doesn't know that Ma's sick.

Ma gives Shermie's hand another squeeze. "Listen, son." Her voice is soft and rasping.

He listens, leaning down to let her speak quietly.

"My Leah's not coming back before the end," she says, regret in every gasping syllable. Shermie opens his mouth to argue, but it's pointless- Ma never lets anyone fight her when it comes to one of her predictions. Her eyes glide over to the door, checking, he guesses, for Pops. "Leah's not gonna know that I've gone, Sherm."

"You don't know that," Shermie says gently, although yeah, he thinks. Lee's not gonna know. Sometimes he thinks Lee might be dead.

"I know it," Ma says, sighing. "I lost both my babies that night, Sherm. Ford isn't gonna get here in time. You'll have to tell him I'm sorry at the funeral, kiddo."

He doesn't know what to say to that, stroking her silver hair back from her face. She fixes him a look, snagging his hand in one of hers.

"I won't see them again," she says, "but you will. When Ford tells you that Leah's a man now, you listen. You don't let your father say he isn't. You understand me, Sherman?"

Shermie mentally reviews growing up with the twins, his little shadows in every way, and what little he did know about them as teenagers. He nods, giving her forehead a smooch. "I understand, Ma."

"You need to protect your little brothers," she murmurs, just as Filbrick awkwardly sidles into the room, tray in hand. "They're grown but they're gonna need you, Sherm. You protect your little brothers."

"Yes, Ma, of course," he tells her, and Filbrick clears his throat. She shoots him a look, her grip tightening.

"I'm counting on you to fix this family, Sherm," she says, a touch loudly. "And-"

She pauses, licking her lips.

"-when you see him, give him a sock in the jaw for all of us," she says.

"Who, Ma?" Shermie asks, glancing uneasily at Filbrick.

"You'll know him when you see him," she says finally, closing her eyes. "Give me a few minutes, kiddo. I'm gonna take my tea and rest a bit."

"Okay, Ma, I love you," Shermie says, giving her another lingering pat on the head before heading out the door. She's gone before Ford's plane lands.

It's 1982 and it's not written down anywhere. Nobody writes this kind of thing down.

Stan finds out because Ford kept the folded paper programme for her funeral in his bedside table, and he's been searching desperately in Ford's bedroom for something that could maybe help with- with the thing downstairs.

He loses a whole weekend to his grief, but only that. After the third day of crying he dreams that Ford is in danger, that the windows of the house have peeled themselves away from the walls and are gold under the splatter of Ford's blood, and he's running, running, running.

And he wakes up, and the work downstairs is the only thing that keeps him from the gulf of his loss.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"I'm not lost," Shermie says firmly, leaning towards the phone mounted on his dashboard. "Siri! How do I get to Gravity Falls?"

"Re-routing," the phone's navigator says pleasantly, and Jess sighs noisily from the passenger side, rustling her maps a little more than strictly necessary. "Sorry, I can't complete that request. Please perform a u-turn in four hundred yards."

"I'm not doing a u-turn," he grumbles in response, turning the phone's volume down. "I know where I'm going, Jessie, I've been here before!"

"You haven't been here in eighteen years, sugarplum," Jess replies coolly, tracing one weathered finger across the map of Oregon in her lap. "I'm just saying, maybe you're forgettin' something."

"I forget nothing!" Shermie snaps, softening immediately after a pointed look from his wife of forty-seven years. "Listen, cuddlefish, I'm just- I'm just saying, it doesn't add up. If my brother's been alive all this time, he would have called. He should have called me. He should have..." Shermie's mouth draws into a line, his hands tightening on the wheel. "Twenty-five years of this, Jess."

"I know, hon." It's a wound he's been picking at for more than half of their marriage, but she reaches over and pats him gently on the bicep anyway. "Sweetie, I'm sure you'll know the whole story when we get there tonight, one way or another."

"Should go in there and sock him in the jaw," Shermie grumbles.

"Don't sock your brother in the jaw, Sherm," Jess tells him, glancing over her glasses at him.

"You don't know which brother I'm talking about," he says sulkily, and she tuts softly under her breath.

"Take the next north exit, and I don't have to know which brother you're talking about, don't sock your brother in the jaw," she says firmly.

"I'm hungry," he grumbles. "Ask Siri if there's any decent food at the next exit, angelfish?"

"Peaseblossom, I'm not talking to your phone, you ask it," she says, and he paws at the phone until the volume is higher again.

"Siri!" he yells uncertainly into the surface. "Siri, is there any decent food at the next exit?"

"Okay," Siri says amiably, then, "Sorry, no results found. Would you like to try again?"

"We'll eat when we get there," Shermie says darkly, casting a suspicious eye at the forest outside.

"Back to Plan A, then," Jess tells him sweetly.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It's almost spring of 1987 and it's been almost ten years since he's seen or spoken to Ford- after the huge blowout at Ma's funeral, nobody honestly expected to hear from him again. But the phone is ringing and Shermie's more curious than anything else as to who might be calling at two o'clock in the morning.

"Is this Sherman Pines' residence?" Ford asks shakily, and Shermie's now wide awake, his spine ramrod straight. "I-"

"Yes!" Shermie booms, relief releasing a torrent he hadn't known he'd been bottling up. "Yes, Stanford, it's me! I wasn't- I wasn't expecting to hear from you- hold on, we really need to-"

There's a small, stifled sob on the other end, and all at once Shermie forgets what it was exactly that he'd been about to tell Ford they need to do. "Ford? What- what's wrong?"

"It's, uh. It's Lee," he says, and Shermie feels like he's swallowed glass.

"What... what happened to Lee?" he asks, and the silence on the other end is enormous. Shermie is dimly aware that he's said something wrong, that this silence is his fault, and he's not at all sure what's going on at the other end of the phone line. "Did... did you get back in touch with-"

"Lee's dead," Ford says shortly, and Shermie sways- thinks he might have keeled over if there hadn't been a kitchen chair nearby. He hears Ford speak- he can't really concentrate on his actual words, just the harsh, clipped way he's speaking, something about having spoken to Lee in person a few days ago, about getting the call from the cops to come identify a body, about having to pay to take it from the morgue- and something wrestles his brain back to comprehension.

"Wh-what?" he asks, and Ford hesitates.

"Oh, uh... just. There was... there was a body, but it- there wasn't anything, uh... it's been cremated. So that's... so that's that," Ford says, and at first Shermie thinks that he can hear a touch of New Jersey coming back into Ford's speech, but-

"Bullshit," he says thickly, pounding his fist on the kitchen table. "That's not it, right? We're- we're gonna do a funeral for Lee, it's- it's the fucking least we could- oh, no, we gotta tell Pops, we-"

"Sherman, there is nothing in the world I want to do less than talk to our father," Ford says coldly, and... well... well, that's to be expected, considering everything.

"You're not going to have to talk to him," Shermie says, taking a deep breath. "Just... please, Ford. I-I've been... I've been lookin' for him ever since Ma told me he was out on the streets, and I just... I just wanna say goodbye."

Another deafening silence, and Shermie's about to ask again, about to reduce himself to begging, because he's failed as a big brother and to be entirely honest, he doesn't think he can go without seeing his remaining sibling.

"You were, uh. You were lookin' for Lee?" Ford asks quietly, and Shermie sobs a laugh.

"H-hey, you don't think I got that fancy lawyerin' degree for fun, do you? I- I called- every time Ma said he was back in jail I tried callin' every prison phone number I could find to see if I could find-" Shermie's body quakes, and he presses his hand into his mouth. "This is my fault, Ford, I shoulda been home-"

"No, Sherm-" Ford says, sounding alarmed.

"Stanford, I shoulda- I shoulda been better, a-and I- I'm sorry, Ford, I- I know it's different, I know he's- was- your twin, it's not the same, but-"

"Sherman, it ain't your-" he starts, then takes a deep, shuddering breath before continuing. "Sherman, it's not your fault. He- Stanley, he, uh, he was going by Stanley when we spoke, he- he wouldn't have... Sherm, he wouldn't've wanted you to blame yourself. Not for... not for this."

"Well too fuckin' bad, he ain't here to tell me not to," Shermie snaps, and after a moment of stunned silence on the other end Ford huffs a small laugh.

"Alright, Shermie. I, uh- I'm pretty busy up here, so-"

"Stanford Pines, if you're not down here for that funeral in four days or less, I'm comin' up to Oregon _myself_ ," Shermie says wetly, and Ford huffs again, agrees to come in a couple of days.

It's not quite been ten years since he saw Ford at Ma's own funeral, but-

-and certainly it's been even longer since he saw Lee, he hasn't seen his youngest sibling since he was just a rowdy seventeen year old, mere days before being kicked out, and who knows what almost twenty years would have looked like etched in that child's face? But-

-and of course Ford doesn't want to sit by Pops, is staring at the floor or at the wall most of the time when people are speaking. Of course Ford would feel- would feel bad, would feel awkward, would probably rather claw his own eyes out than ever attend another Pines funeral, much less witness the closest thing to a noisy breakdown they've ever seen in their father. Of course nearly a decade of whatever it is Ford does up in Oregon, the highs of his mania and the dragging lows of his melancholy, the solitude, the- of course it would change Ford. And of course he's grayer, softer around the jaw and middle, haggard around the eyes- Pines men tend to look a certain way after they hit a certain age, and they're all getting older, of course, of course, but-

-and nobody would blame Ford for the way he's looking at Pops, Filbrick has more than earned his distrust and disdain, but-

-but it looks like a flicker of childish fear, for a moment, and Shermie's been a lawyer for too long (and a Pines for even longer) to miss something like that, and yes, alright, Ford has changed, and his brother is a stranger to him now- his brothers both are strangers, but even if he doesn't know anything about them now he'd know them at sight in a crowd, in a lineup, but-

-but would he, really?

Because he knows that the man with the gloved, six-fingered hands and the trenchcoat squinting at things through his glasses introduced himself as Stanford Pines, and he knows that nothing more can be expected of this sad-looking wreck who barely speaks and whose words are short and stilted when he does, and he knows that Ford and Lee must have talked about _something_ in that final conversation, and so much had been unsaid for so long between them, and maybe things were mended before the end but maybe they'd said things that couldn't be taken back now.

Pops is crying, his eyes and face hidden- anything but stony silence would have been weird, he knows, but it's downright surreal to see. He supposes it's just another thing he should know about his father- the man was a lot of things, but brutally honest usually one of those things, and maybe the knowledge that his child is not just gone but _lost_ was enough to break his stoic reserve. Shermie knows what Ma felt and said about losing Lee when he was a kid. He doesn't know what Pops feels about losing him for good, can't imagine going through this with Jacob, can't imagine putting Jake in that position in the first place. He's never understood Pops less.

Jacob asks Ford about his work and he answers- and it sounds a lot like Ford, because it's talking about theoretical science that Shermie normally wouldn't be able to understand-

-but he does understand, he realizes, because Ford's breaking it down into words and phrases and concepts that actually mean something to a layperson, and Ford's always been talented but he'd never been able to forget that not everyone had the same background in physics that he had.

Ford's changed a whole hell of a lot, it seems.

"You gotta come to Thanksgiving," Shermie tells him, and when he sees the note of panicked denial on Ford's face it's just one more thing that yes, could just be how Ford is, but-

-but-

Later, after having wrung a tentative RSVP from Ford, after everyone has gone and it's just Jess and Shermie, lying awake in the darkness of their room, he says, slowly, "I don't... I don't know if I can believe that my brother is dead."

"That's how I feel about Fern," Jess says softly, and Shermie winces- Jess's youngest sibling had left home at eighteen and gotten married and stopped writing and visiting home, and eventually Jess's parents had given up on the idea of Fern coming back home to Tennessee. Jess hesitates, giving Shermie's side a nudge after a moment. "I think- maybe, you know- Fern might have been like your brother."

Shermie frowns, and she gives him another nudge. "Like Stanley. Mom and Dad never really- they never really talked about anything like that, you know, but I think they sort of knew... something. Fern got married to 'er childhood sweetheart, and then it came out that Manny's a gal now. And Fern was always some kinda way, and I guess our parents thought... well, I dunno what they thought. Wasn't the sort of thing anyone'd ever talked about, and now they're gone and we ain't had our youngest more'n twenty years. Even the Riveras hear from their daughter every now an' again, but... but if Fern was with her, we'd have heard from Fern, too. So... so we've had to decide that... maybe Fern really has gone and died."

"Yeah," Shermie says, wrapping an arm around her and sighing. The silence is heavy, aside from the occasional sniffle.

"I would do almost anything to see Fern again," Jess says quietly. "I think you did the good thing today, tryin' to get back in with Ford. Everybody thinks family's permanent, and it's... it's really not."

Another sniffle.

"I know," he says, sighing. He licks his lips, wanting to just sort of... get it out in the air, so to speak, let himself say it once so that he can hear for himself how silly it sounds. "Hey, Jessie?"

"Yeah, hon?"

"What if- what if Stanley isn't dead," he says experimentally.

"Well- honey," she sighs.

"What if he ain't dead because that's him, not Stanford, and Ford's the one who's- who's gone," he says shakily, unwilling to say the d-word again.

"...carrot-cake, do you really think that your brother killed your other brother and took his place?" she asks flatly.

"No," Shermie says, a touch defensively. "No, I just- I don't think Ford's dead, necessarily, just- it doesn't add up, Jess, he's- he's different, and I... I know my brothers, Jess, I don't think that's Ford we've been with today, I think... I think it's Lee."

"Sweetie," Jess says carefully. "Even assumin' that Stanford would have been completely alright with disappearing and lettin' Stanley completely take over his life and name- and, by the way, accordin' to all sources, which means that Lee would have to be making up for several missin' appendages-"

"That's gross," Shermie mutters sullenly.

"-even if both of them were okay with this, _which nobody would be_ ," she continues, gently exasperated to the point that her faded Southern accent is creeping back into her voice. "Sugarplum, whose ashes were in that urn your brother's been carrying around?"

"We don't know those are _human_ ashes," Shermie says, and she rolls onto her side, facing him. Her hand comes to rest on his cheek, gently stroking it with the pad of her thumb.

"Sherm, I love you, but this ain't the time. I know you want your brother to be alive. I know you want your family to be whole. Pumpkin, some things just aren't meant to be," she says quietly. He mutely presses a kiss to her forehead and says nothing. She's right, that's- that's the thing. So many weird, improbable things would have to have happened for this to even make sense.

But-

-still.

 He's shaking the entire drive home. He didn't- he didn't think it would be so fucking hard. He doesn't want to see any of these people ever again.

His big brother'd been looking for him all that time.

His heart is threatening to explode out of his chest, like in that weird movie with the chick and the aliens. Being around these people is _hell_.

His brother had wanted him, all those years. His brother had wept, thinking he'd never get a chance to find him.

That has to count for something, right?

Stan goes back to the cabin where the work downstairs has eaten five years of his life and looks to be his prison for at least another five. He can't afford to take breaks for family visits like this. He can't keep pretending to be Ford to his own family.

Come November, though, he knocks nervously on the door to the house where his own funeral had been held, a clumsily-chosen bottle of wine in one hand and a practiced story about finally getting surgery to make his hands normal in his mouth.

He tells himself that Ford, when he gets back, will figure out a way to make this right, that Ford will want the relationship Stan's building for him.

And if there's no place for Stan at the end of it all-

-well-

-isn't that what he was always headed for, anyway?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The sun's almost but not-quite down, the looming forest making it darker than it has to be for a sky that golden. There's a couple of cars parked out front- the ridiculous red El Diablo that his brothers have been driving since they were sixteen and a cute little sky-blue convertible with fist-sized dents on the trunk- and there are warm lights on inside. Shermie hoists his and Jessie's overnight bags over one shoulder, giving the front of the self-proclaimed Mystery Shack a grim stare.

"If you don't stop making that face it'll get stuck," Jess tells him mildly, and he sighs noisily at her. "Sherm, wait until we're inside before you start with the theatrics."

"Yes, butterfish," he says sulkily, and she raises one hand to primly knock at the door. There's a heated scuffle as the people inside, apparently, fight to get to the door first, and then, exactly as expected-

"GRANDMA! GRANDPA!" Mabel shrieks, bouncing bodily into them both.

"Grandpa! Grandma!" Dipper cries out, joining the group hug. A tall, heavily scarred blonde woman is hovering nervously a few feet away, wringing her hands and grinning over at them- that, Shermie mentally asserts, must be the Wife Jake'd mentioned over the phone- and behind her-

-behind her, the twins are standing awkwardly, wearing pressed black pants and matching shirts, as if Shermie wouldn't pick up on them trying to dress like one another. The kids are yammering happily at him about their summer and how glad they are to see him, and both of the twins look worried and sweaty and just a little bit ashamed. Jess clears her throat.

"So- let's say we get out of the way of the Pines Brothers Reunion, munchkins," she says, and the blonde snorts a laugh.

"That's what I said! I, uh- by the way, hi, I'm Ripley-" she starts, and visibly startles when Jess gives her a swift, warm hug. Shermie feels like he's rooted to the spot, staring at the twins, who are now gaping slightly at him.

"Welcome to the family, Ripley! So let's just, ah-" Jess says, letting Mabel and Dipper drag her slightly towards the kitchen where the kids've apparently been cooking in preparation for their arrival.

"Hey, Sherm, uh- long time no see," Stanley says anxiously, a shiteating grin spread across his face and sweat pooling under his shirt. "I, uh- as you can- so, uh, surprise! Stanley's- uh- he's alive and, uh-"

"H-hello, I-I know you probably have a lot of questions," Stanford says, hands clenched into fists in his pockets. "Uh, I- I see you've met my-"

"Ford," Shermie says quietly, putting the bags down. "Shut up." He wraps his arms around his brother before he can move, before he can disappear for another thirty years, and squeezes him close. "We're gonna have a conversation later but for now- for right now, shut up, Ford."

"I, uh-" Stanley says awkwardly, and Shermie opens one eye to shoot him a glare.

"Get over here, Lee," he all but growls. Stan approaches cautiously, and is yanked into Shermie's arms, too. He buries his face against both of his baby brothers' shoulders for the first time in more than forty years. Ma's admonition is almost thirty-five years old- _fix this family_ \- but the wound is still raw, even now with both of them tense and shaking against him.

"I'm gonna kick both your asses," he promises. "Look at what you're doing. You're making a seventy-year-old-man kick both your asses."

("Now he's telling them a seventy-year-old-man is gonna kick both their-" Ripley pauses, glancing over at the kids and at Jess from her prime eavesdropping spot next to the kitchen door. "Butts. Which, by the way, for the record, I called it the second I found out. How's the cake?"

"Looks absolutely fantastic, sweetie," Jess tells her, and she blushes visibly, ducking her head. Jess grins at the grandkids, flourishing the store-brand Funfetti frosting that had been next to the cooling cake on the counter. "Mabel, Dipper, the two of you got a reunion cake design in mind?"

"I came prepared," Mabel says seriously, brandishing a couple of jars of edible glitter. Dipper, darling that he is, is already pulling out a hand-drawn chart of where they're going to draw the words PINES PINES PINES and where they're going to cover the rest in sparkles.

"Actually, Grandma, I think we might be a little short on non-glitter sprinkles," he says slowly, frowning down at his paperwork.

"Ooh boy," Jess says happily, before digging a little jar of rainbow sprinkles out of her purse. "And here I thought I wouldn't get a chance to use my emergency stash on this trip!"

"Ohhh," Ripley says, beaming at the three of them. "Oh my God, you three are _so obviously_ related."

"What are they saying now, Ripley?" Jess asks, and Ripley presses her ear against the crack in the door again, frowning.

"Now they- well, they got quiet but I think it's because Fidds walked in the room- he's, uh, he's another friend of the family, you'll love him," Ripley says quickly, glancing nervously at Jess. "And I guess he's, uh, commenting on the fact that they really, really all look alike. Which they do! I mean, gosh, they really do!"

"Fidds?" Jess asks, giving the kids her attention. "Is this one related to- Soos?" she asks carefully.

"Oh, no, that's- it's Old Man McGucket," Mabel says blithely, and Jess sucks in a breath. "But we're calling him Grunkle Fidds now because he's- because he's nice, Grandma, are you okay?"

"Did you just say McGucket?" Jess demands, and the kids and Ripley all give her a worried, puzzled look.)

It's 1987 and five years ago, Fiddleford McGucket thinks his wife left him. He thinks. He doesn't want to think about that. It hurts too bad. The gun helps, though. He doesn't remember anything else ever helping.

It's 1978 and he and Amanda are coming up on their tenth anniversary. They're in bed in Palo Alto, basking in sunshine while a funeral begins in New Jersey, and Amanda puts her hands on Fiddleford's waist and tells him that she wants to have a kid.

It's fall semester of 1969 and the kid should be a freshman but he's in all of Fiddleford's sophomore-level classes. He's freshly eighteen and introduces himself as Stanford Pines.


	11. Let Me Go

Shermie is up with the sun- Jess, he says, wasn't feeling too good last night, nothing major but she's going to rest up a little today. Ripley is a little disappointed, to be honest, because she really, _really_ likes Jess. She's not sure what it is, but something about her feels... right.

_a small smile and dark eyes set in a dark, wrinkled face, "hello there, are you playing a game?"_

Ripley waits until she's alone with Dipper and Mabel, doing their morning stretches, before asking them if they think their grandparents seem to like her.

"I think so," Mabel says, exchanging a nod with Dipper. "They had kind of a lot of go over yesterday, I think."

"That's a true thing," Ripley muses, waiting until Mabel launches herself at her before casually lifting the giggling girl on one arm.

"Grandpa Shermie said he had a lot of stuff he wanted to ask us about you and Stan and Ford," Dipper offers. "And Mr. McGucket and everybody." Ripley deposits Mabel on the grass, falling into a modified fighting stance and extending her fists with a smile. Dipper matches her movements, his bright brown eyes hopeful.

"I mean, you've been telling your family all along about all of this stuff before now, right?" she asks, and the kids shrug. She barrels towards her nephew and- to everyone's utter delight- he grabs her arm and executes a mostly-perfect throw, too short and thin to really lift her over a shoulder but strong and well-timed enough to redirect her own movements. She lands hard, already beaming.

"I-I did it?" he asks, gaping, and Ripley swipes him into her arms for a hug, his hat tumbling. "I did it!"

"You did it!" she confirms with a laugh, before Mabel lands on top of them both with a happy cry.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There's a flash of colored light, maybe just a few blocks away. John smiles when she squeezes his hand- a tired, ragged smile, but a smile nonetheless- and gives her a tug in that direction.

"Almost there," he promises. He turns away and takes a step, and she sees something flicker in the shadows, a ripple in the darkness, a slither across a wall. Paint and plaster crackle and sour and drop to the sidewalk with a clatter, the same moment that she grabs onto him.

"Something's up there," she hisses, and John's eyes widen slightly, but that's all- nothing else that betrays the fear in his voice when he thinks she's sleeping. He doesn't even bother to look- she supposes he doesn't need to, that if it's the thing he's afraid of there's no safety in knowing. He takes off at a run, his grip on her hand a vise, and she doesn't bother to voice her complaints as her battered, shoeless feet beat the filthy pavement. There's a _thud_ noise behind them and she doesn't want to look- what if it's right behind them, what if it's right on top of them- and a hissing, wheezing laugh, too close behind.

It's a wretched sound, and it feels like something's hot breath is on the back of her neck- she turns back to see if it is, and it's really not, it's something like half the street away still, but _oh_ -

-ropy, rust-brown saliva coating its mouth and hanging over its sunken, skeletal chest, it's shaped like a man but its eyes are flat obsidian leaking ichor and its teeth are everywhere and it's _smiling_ -

-she stumbles with a soft whimper, landing on her knees and almost dragging John down with her, it's going to get her, he's going to keep going and she's frozen and it's going to get her and _it's going to eat her_ , its smile is stretching open, she tries to scramble backwards but the warped old man is faster than he looks, faster than he'd been, fast enough that she understands this was a game, it was _always_ a game, it was always going to end like this-

"Bea!" John snaps, a strong arm around her chest under her armpits, half-raising, half-dragging her until she can find her footing. Their run is equal parts sprint and limp, her left ankle jolting her back into horrified reality every time her brain gets stuck on its eyes and its mouth and its eyes and its mouth and its eyes and its mouth-

-there is an open portal in the wall, leaking boxes and bins piled up in the street around it. It takes her a second to realize that someone's been using this alley to put trash somewhere out of sight. It takes her another second to realize she sees movement on the other side.

They tumble through together in a heap, John screaming at the startled creature to shut the portal down. It obliges, muttering something in accented but understandable English- a green thing with red compound eyes, like a praying mantis in a uniform.

She takes a deep breath and finds that air isn't working- panicking first that they're in a place incompatible with human life, panicking second that she almost got herself and John killed with her stupidity.

He wraps his arms around her, pressing his mouth against the top of her head, his body shaking with silent sobs.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 Shermie has coffee and an egg and some toast all laid out for her when Jess comes down, giving his little brothers and Fiddleford a tired, polite smile.

("I'm not ready to say," she'd told him last night, a hand on his face. "Give me some time to think while you and your awful brothers work this all out." He doesn't like that she's not sharing whatever it is worrying her with him, but he knows that she'll tell him when it's something he can help her with.)

"I'm surprised the kids are up so early in the summertime," she comments, peeking out the window at them as they tussle with Ford's wife. "Energetic. Is that judo?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Ford says- to his credit, a touch meekly. Shermie is in no mood to put up with anything today. Lee- well, Stan, Shermie has been calling him Stan to avoid feeling like a liar calling him _Stanford_ for twenty-five years, and the kids know him only as their Uncle Stan- Stan has been giving everyone in the room uncomfortable, hangdog looks when he thinks they're not looking, and carefully blank scowls when he thinks they are. Fiddleford is trying to do a crossword in pencil while he sips his tea, his knee bouncing lightly as he pretends there's no tension in the small kitchen. Ford himself looks like he barely slept, his hair a messy pile on his forehead, his cracked glasses slightly askew as he massages the bridge of his nose.

"Well, your Ripley is a treasure for getting those two out of bed and on their feet," Jess says, taking a seat- across, he notes, from Fiddleford. If the man knows he's being observed he does an okay job not reacting to it.

"She's a good teacher," Ford says distantly, and Shermie thinks he can read his brother pretty well, despite all these years apart, and wonders what it was she taught him before.

"You guys, uh," Stan says, his face heating visibly when Shermie gives him is full attention. "You guys have any plans for the day?"

"We have some things to _discuss_ , Stanley," Shermie says sternly, and when Ford starts to look slightly relaxed he adds, "with _both_ of you."

"I uh- Well, actually, I got work today, so-" Stan says, chuckling nervously.

"I'm one hundred percent sure this is a conversation we can have throughout the day," Shermie tells him, and Jess sighs. "I'm going to need a few breaks here and there, unraveling the story between you two. Thirty-four years of no contact with you, Stanford- and don't try to tell me that NOT ONCE since Ma passed you couldn'ta called or wrote-"

"Pumpkin, your blood pressure," Jess murmurs into her mug.

"-and you, Stanley, twenty-five years of pretending to be him, makin' me think I'm losin' my mind because _there's just no good reason_ why my brother would rather pretend to be dead and impersonate the other one than tell me what's happening," he adds, pretending he didn't hear the bit about his blood pressure. "And-"

"Thirty," Fiddleford says automatically, tensing when he realizes that now all three Pines men are staring hard in his direction.

"What," Shermie says calmly, because he certainly has no quarrel with this Fiddleford fellow- _unless he's in on this entire thing_ , in which case he will review his feelings.

"It's- it's been thirty years," he says slowly, and Shermie is certainly aware of the way both Ford and Stan are gesturing desperately at the man to stop speaking but Fiddleford, apparently, is not. "That's how long St-Stanford was gone fer... i-it was 1982 when he- wh-when Stan took over as F-F-Ford..."

Shermie turns slowly towards his redfaced little brothers, two grown-ass men who somehow managed to not let that little nugget of truth slip their lips before.

"Thirty fucking years?" he asks icily.

"Uh, I'm gonna- I'm just gonna git on outta here-" Fiddleford mumbles apologetically, already halfway out the door.

"Thirty fucking years!" Shermie snaps, and Jess takes what's left of his coffee away from him.

"It's not his fault," Stan says defensively, hands up. "He- he was gone. I didn't ask him before I- I just- I couldn't pay his mortgage if I wasn't him and we couldn't lose the house- a-and Sherm, look, I know you're pissed-"

"You shoulda told me, you knucklehead, I could've lawyered your name onto the deed," Shermie says, dragging his hands over his face. "And instead you wait five fucking years to let me know anything's happened, and when you finally do it's- it's this fucking farce, tellin' me you're dead and- and tellin' me you're Ford? Like I wouldn't know? Like I wouldn't _deserve_ to know? Like I would never find out?"

"Hon," Jess says, putting a hand on his shoulder, and Shermie feels the weight of his mother's last requests, half his lifetime ago.

"And- and you," he says, turning to jab a finger in Ford's direction. "Where, pray tell, have you fucking been!?"

"It's complicated-" Ford starts, and Shermie feels like he's going to pop a vessel. "Sherman, if I could have contacted you- or _anyone_ on this _planet_ \- I would have!"

"Like you did in the four years between the last time I saw you and you leavin' the country? Like you did right away when you got here?" Shermie asks, and Ford can't meet his eyes. Shermie drags his hands down his face again, as if he could pull away all the thoughts clamoring for his immediate attention.

"You two," he says, and he hates how old and helpless he sounds now, like some kind of feeble old man. "You two knuckledheads-"

"Sherm," Jess says gently, "the kids are headin' back in. Reel it in, sweetie."

He takes a deep breath. "This is far from over," he mutters, shaking himself loose before the kids and Ripley burst into the kitchen as a single sweaty, unaccountably happy unit.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

New Year's Eve, 1987; Rick wants to get home, to his daughter and his baby sister and the ex-wife who still sometimes lets him talk to her, but no, he's out here in the middle of fucking nowhere, looking for Stanford Fucking Pines, because that asshole's just published a paper in an academic journal- and that, itself, wouldn't have been that big a deal, except for the fact that Pines's so-called theoretical research into quantum physics and cosmic radiation doesn't just venture into speculative territory- there's math and observational jargon mixed in with what Rick's gonna kindly refer to as the Fun Shit, stuff that Pines couldn't have _just_ stumbled on, not unless he's _also_ been working with portals.

Rick's not jealous. He's not even pissed- well, he's not pissed about Pines doing some interesting work for once, he's just pissed at the fact that the man lives across the damn country from Rick's family and didn't even have the decency to live somewhere easy to find.

But portal work is dangerous shit. Rick knows they still call him Softy Rick up at the Citadel even though half of the Ricks who saw the Softee Treats shirt are now MIA or dead, and he knows that a lot of Ricks wouldn't have bothered with trying to warn Pines instead of just stomping in and wrecking his shit entirely. A portal means _attention_. A portal means the Galactic Federation sniffing around, and just being smart enough to make a portal generator doesn't mean Pines is smart enough to resist Federation interrogation tactics. A portal means the last decade of Rick's work trying to protect Earth from discovery all blown to shit.

So.

Rick takes a swig from his flask to steady his nerves before he tries to talk to a local- he's never been good at people, and he's not drunk enough to convince himself that it's because he's just too smart for mere mortals- and approaches a trio of guys walking on the sidewalk in front of a vaguely important-looking building. It's late- dark out but still a few hours ahead of midnight, the single bar full of people but the streets otherwise empty- and the guys are all wearing matching red Members-Only jackets. Must be some kind of club or something.

It's the very definition of some kinda cornfed huckleberry bullshit small-town, but there's got to be someone around here who knows that scientific goddamn history is being made around here, right?

"H-hey," he says, lurching up to the guys. "A-anybody here give me a hand findin' Stanford Pines?"

The tallest of the guys stiffens- funny-lookin' guy about Rick's height, bald, no eyebrows but covered in what looks, on closer inspection, like phrenology tattoos. Almost sounds like the kind of thing Rick would appreciate in a guy, if it wasn't for the fact this weirdo's giving Rick the hairy eyeball and whispering to his buddies, just shy of audible.

"I-I take it th-that's a no," Rick says unhappily, taking a step back from the three guys as the tall one pulls out a weird-looking gun.

"I don't want to do this in public," he says over Rick's shoulder, voice shaking despite the tough facade. "Can you handle this, Bud?"

Rick doesn't get a chance to voice his question before a meaty fist to the back of his skull answers it.

Stanford Pines buries his face against Ripley's neck and mutters soft promises to get her out of the Rodent Dimension as soon as possible. They'll get home. They'll get out of this mess. He doesn't know why she's crying- he doesn't think she knows, either- but-

-but she is, and it's only been a few months since they met but he needs to do something about it.

Rick wakes up tied to a chair in an unfamiliar room. This isn't new territory for him, and he is good enough at feigning unconsciousness to hear the end of a heated debate-

"-the charter clearly says people're to stay far, far away from him! That means outsiders, too!"

"The Founder said we're to avoid anything happening to or around Pines, not waylaying his old friends who try to look for him!"

"The Founder isn't here- and when the Founder isn't here, I'm the one making decisions about what we're to do-"

"-we were _never_ supposed to bring harm to anyone, Wexler-"

"And we never have," the first voice says smoothly, before a burst of bright blue light that burns even through Rick's closed eyes. There is a thud, and the silence is thick with meaning, before the voice sighs. "Take her away. We'll attempt to recruit her again next week."

There is a dragging sound. Rick opens his eyes, and he's alone in the room with the tattooed guy from before.

"You want to let me out of here before somebody gets hurt. You f-fucking morons have no idea who you're dealing with," he says calmly, and the man gives him a grim smile.

"Why don't you tell us?" he offers, and Rick rears up against the restraints.

"Y-you know what? F-f-fuck you!" he spits out, and the tattooed man sighs, adjusting the cuffs on his red jacket. Rick's brain gives him a thousand ways to kill this piece of shit, the second he gets close enough- he's not the most physical guy, but he's been working on that with Birdperson and Squanchy, and he'll be damned if he lets some dickweed from Bumfuck, Oregon put an end to his work with the Rebellion.

"I suppose you're another one like Pines and the Founder," he murmurs, fiddling with the dial on the gun- which, the more Rick looks at it, the more he's sure it's not exactly a gun, it's certainly not a ballistic weapon, if anything it looks like his failed first attempts at a portal gun from the early seventies, when he and Pines and Pines's roomates used to dick around in the walled-off stairwell to nowhere that was Backupsmore's unofficial speakeasy. "A Scientist who thinks he knows all of the answers... an educated fool. Ah well. You're better off without his evil influence in your brain."

The man picks up a brown wallet off the table- Rick's wallet, he realizes with a hiss, it must have slipped out of his jeans- and gives a cursory look at the ID, not bothering with anything else.

"Ricardo Sanchez," he reads dully. "You're a long way from Atlanta, Mr. Sanchez." He writes something down on an empty plastic tube with a squeaking permanent marker, before setting it into a little niche in the side of the not-a-gun. If he could just get a few inches closer, Rick could-

"Goodbye, Mr. Sanchez. You won't be seeing me again," the man says, and there's another burst of that blue light-

-and Rick howls, he can _feel_ the neural pathways in his brain snapping and breaking and _oh god they're taking it_ , he's taking Rick's _brain_ , he's taking _Rick_ -

-it hurts, it hurts, he's not sure if he's swearing or shrieking or weeping but his brain is _everything_ and it's going and it's everything and something is in his head, raking through his skull with sticky fingers and laughing and it hurts-

-and just like that, five years of Rick's life goes muddy and gray, and he doesn't remember his friend Stanford's voice, although the guy would have bristled at calling them friends, although Rick himself would have bristled at calling him his friend, but there wasn't anybody else, it was just Fordsy and Fiddsy and Mandy and at the end there Evangeline but Rick had to fuck things up, as usual, and now he can't remember how he fucked it up, only that he wasn't welcome anymore-

-and he doesn't remember his friend ~~Stanford's~~ face, a black hole in the shape of a man, seven semesters of shared lab space fractured into bits and pieces, one-sided conversations with the void, and he knows the void was his friend but he can't- he can't-

-and he doesn't remember his friend ████████'s shape or hands or his work, he's not even sure Fiddsy and Mandy had another roommate except for the fact that he knows he remembers going to their apartment for dinner and a table set for four-

-and he doesn't remember, for one sickening moment that stretches out forever and ever and ever, he doesn't remember who he is, he doesn't remember what he is, vague words and associations flit across his great and terrible brain and he could be any of those things, he doesn't know, he doesn't remember, he doesn't know-

_and for just a moment, the Forge winks out of existence, and something made of unending hunger can feel the flicker of the One Sword for the first time in over twelve years, and it is hungry and it is close, and the girl is small and weak and will be so, so easy_

-and all of a sudden he's back. Where was he?

He's slumped against the closed door of his rental car. There's vomit down the front of his shirt. He groans, and his name comes back to him. He's Rick Sanchez. He's a goddamn genius who gets blackout drunk and wakes up places and doesn't know where he is or how he got there. He doesn't know where he was before. Something important, maybe. He lurches to his feet.

_and just like that, the Forge returns, fire and fury and gravity distorting the very fabric of the universe, and something made of hunger is thwarted again, and for now a twelve year old girl in Atlanta is safe enough, drinking stolen liquor in the treehouse Rick built for her and hoping he'll come home soon_

He peels off his filthy shirt and tosses it into his trunk, grabs a spare t-shirt from the backseat and pulls it on- another one that he's pretty sure Bea stole from somewhere and gave to him for his last birthday, a soft teal blue with a glow-in-the-dark drawing of a simple atom on the chest. He should spend some time with her, he thinks. Ponytail Rick (Doofus Rick behind his back, which is really stupidly childish of the other Ricks) lives with his Bea; maybe he can give Rick some ideas on shit Bea'd like to do together.

He pats his left pocket for his wallet, and is sure for a moment that he lost it- but no, it's just in his right pocket, for some reason.

Weird.

He massages the bridge of his nose for a moment.

"Why am I here," he mutters- and it strikes him, unpleasantly, that he should know where he is. He fumbles around in his dashboard until he finds a small marvel- a cheap trinket organizer from Squanchy's planet, but its parallel has yet to exist on Earth- and pulls up a small holographic image. Squanchy's been nagging him to be more organized- Marisa'd been doing that, too, and he hadn't bothered trying to change until his friend had insisted, and his mind is unraveling as it goes down the rabbithole of wondering why he cared more about listening to his buddy than his wife, and he doesn't have _time_ for-

-aha. To-do list for 12/31/87. It's that easy, except the notes he'd written this morning (he checks his watch; yeah, it's still this morning) are obviously for Sober Rick, an asshole who didn't feel like writing down everything or even every letter, abbreviations everywhere. He puzzles over it for a few moments, resenting his past self.

Portal research - experimental materials - Stanford Pines - Murder Hut???

Rick feels like he's forgetting something- only he doesn't forget anything, he's never forgotten anything he didn't want to forget, so if he doesn't know something it must not have been important enough to remember.

Stanford Pines. It's familiar- of course it's familiar, he decides, they were... lab partners? Acquaintances for sure. Kind of a prickly guy. Kind of stuffy, maybe? He wracks his brain- there was an article, wasn't there? Must not have been that good, because he can't remember much of it, but maybe there was something about using radioactive runoff from power plants as a fuel source for... for portals, right?

Right. Stupid stuff, but Rick can see why Sober Rick (feels kind of weird, feels kind of inaccurate, he doesn't feel like he's Drunk Rick) would have been interested in seeing the guy.

Well. It can't hurt to track the guy down and see if he might be of use.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Um, Jess? Could I have a word in private?" Ripley asks, and there is a chorus of disappointed aww's from the kids and Shermie as she stands up during the episode of Ducktective. Ripley goes crimson and looks like she's about to run, so Jess gives her a warm smile.

"Don't worry, hon, I've seen this episode before. My Sherman's a sucker for animals wearing clothes."

"Me too!" Mabel chirrups, and Ripley grins.

"Oh, so that's where you get it," she says, and Jess lets her escort her into another room. The poor thing looks every direction but up as she tries to find her words- Jess wonders for a moment how everyone in this family ended up so much like everyone else, and chalks it up to the kind hand of fate. She waits, not wanting to rush her new sister-in-law.

Finally, Ripley takes a deep breath and just comes right out with it.

"Jess, am I to understand that nobody's come out and actually said all of what's been going on for thirty-whatever years?" she asks miserably, and Jess gives her a wry smile. "I- I don't understand any of these Pineses, Jess, I dunno how you been puttin' up with it all this time."

"Practice yields patience, I reckon," Jess says, stifling a small laugh. Ripley huffs a little chuckle. "You know what-all's been going on, though?"

"Yeah, I- I know most," she sighs, giving Jess an entreating look. "Ford, uh- he told me stories about Sherman and you and Jacob, just in case I ever got to meet y'all, and I- I don't want for y'all to be mad at each other, okay?"

"That's completely reasonable," Jess says, giving her a pat on the shoulder, and Ripley goes red again.

"Look- I'm gonna tell you what I know," she says, lowering her voice. "And I don't know why anybody's acting like any of this is a secret, and- I mean, i-if you wanna think I'm just, you know, crazy or dumb or stupid or- or lying, whatever, I'm not any of that but you can verify this stuff with the guys, it's-"

"Hey, hold on there, applebutter, I don't think you're any of that stuff, and I certainly don't think you'd lie to us," Jess says quickly, alarmed that this woman thinks she'd assume anything like that. Ripley takes a deep breath.

"Stan _had_ to fake his death," she says miserably, "because he had a couple of nasty criminal buddies sniffing around, and they'd threatened to kill him back in eighty-one, eighty-two, and he couldn't die because that would mean nobody would be able to get Ford back."

"I mean, he shouldn't be dyin' anyway," Jess says, and Ripley gestures gratefully at her. "So... you're sayin' he felt like he had no choice because the danger he was in meant... that Ford was also in danger?"

"Yeah," Ripley nods, looking around for either set of twins. "I don't know everything about that time, but- I mean, I understand, I think, there's stuff about me that would, uh- would probably result in nobody ever wantin' to let their kids near me, so probably that's what he's worried for, but- but he's good, alright, he's a good person."

"I know, I know he is," Jess says soothingly, studying Ripley's face. "Believe it or not, Sherm and I've been suspecting that the person we knew all these years is really Stan, and- well, let's just say Shermie wouldn't have let this summer happen if he didn't know that the kids'd be with someone who loved'em."

Ripley breathes a sigh of relief, nodding. "Okay. Okay. We- honestly, that was- that was the thing I was most scared of, to be honest, Stan really... I think he really thought none of y'all'd've wanted anything to do with him after this."

"I mean, Shermie's pissed as heck, but he'll work this out like he always does," Jess assures her. She pauses, pressing her fingers together over her mouth. "Get Ford back from what, pumpkin?"

"Ford and I _were technically_ out of the country when we met," Ripley says, fidgeting mightily with her sweater. "Because we, ah, were technically also on another planet. In another branch of the multiverse. Ford was lost in space, uh, literally, and Stan's been workin' for thirty years to get him back."

Jess stares at her for a moment, and she shrinks miserably back against the wall. "See, look, you think I'm crazy or- or makin' this up, but-"

"I don't think you're lying," Jess says carefully, "and I can tell you're not stupid and I'm not gonna try to say you're not sane, darlin'. It's... it's a lot to process on top of... everything. Every single thing that has been said this weekend has been kind of a paradigm shift for us, cupcake, I, uh- wow. Okay."

"You gotta believe me, I told Ford it would be really dumb to lie," Ripley says quietly.

"Let me just-" Jess takes a deep breath. "This is all a bit beyond me. Intrigue and high-concept sci-fi whathaveyou aren't really my, uh... my forte. I really just- you know, maybe we, uh, we can get together with the fellas and make sure everyone is on the same page."

"... you don't believe me," Ripley sighs, and- okay, no, but only because she's having a hard time finding the concept of all this possible, not because she doubts the nice lady in front of her. Jess moves slightly and Ripley brightens up, pulling a long silver flashlight out of a well-concealed holster. "It's okay! Look at this plasma sword, that's- that's proof, right?"

She ignites something very like the lightsabers from the movies, beaming. Jess puts a hand over her mouth.

"See? It's not fake," Ripley says desperately, and Jess nods quickly.

"Yeah, Ripley, I see that, uh- y-you mind puttin' that thing away, pumpkin?" Crestfallen, she does, the sword snapping out of existence with a faintly meaty sizzle before she puts it back in her holster. "So, uh... so. That's certainly a thing that... that is definitely... a-and you're sayin' you and the real Stanford got that out in outer space?"

"Yeah," Ripley says, chewing on her lower lip. "So- you uh. You believe me."

"I... think so, yeah," Jess says carefully, not entirely sure if she wants to commit to aliens and the multiverse yet. "Think maybe we should... just, you know, for perspective's sake, maybe... maybe get Ford and Stan and Shermie in the room for this though, too."

"Yeah," Ripley breathes out, relieved. "Yeah, see- this is gonna go much, much faster and easier with everybody in the room all at once. Everything's gonna be fine."

Jess has to smile at this optimism, even though everything she knows about the Pineses would indicate... otherwise. Still- she just- she has to ask.

"How does Fiddlehead fit into all this?" she blurts out, bewildered.

"Fiddleford," Ripley corrects absently, scratching her neck. "He's- he's Ford's best friend but also I think... kind of Stan's best friend? We **_love_ ** him," she says firmly, and Jess nods, faintly relieved that he wasn't in the 'lost in space' group but now more confused than ever.

"Good... good. I think... I think it's time the six of us sat down and, ah, and talked all this out," Jess suggests.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"The good news is, they speak English," John mumbles shaking bodily as the aliens return him from the interrogation. They're in trouble, she knows, because she's only seen pictures but she's pretty sure the uniformed aliens who descended en masse to pick her and John up from the warehouse are gromflobites- gromflomites? The word for the name of this particular alien species escapes her. Their Galactic Federation regalia, however, does not. "Did you know they can just laser themselves into your brain and watch your memories with you? I did not know that. They, uh... wow. They sure... found a lot of old memories I'd... I'd been avoiding for a while, though. So that's fun."

"Anything good?" she asks softly, trying to keep her voice steady. She doesn't want to make him worry any more- he looks awful in the light of their holding cell, his skin graying under the harsh glow and from what she thinks is shock. He doesn't respond, moving instead to take a look at her ankle- he'd tried to wrap it up for her before being taken away. He fusses over it for a few minutes, trying to get it to a better elevation, rubbing her hands between his to warm them up.

His hands are covered in fresh little slices. There is an ugly scar down the side of his forehead, freshly made and hastily glued shut. She inhales slowly, then sighs, crossing her arms over the front of her borrowed shirt.

"John," she says quietly. "When they take me in there, they're going to, uh... they're going to find out about my brother. They're going to find a bunch of shit that I know, like the Galactic Standard location of Earth, and where my brother's wife and daughter live, and-" She drags her hands down her face. "John, look, this... this is gonna suck, okay? But what I'm asking you to do, you gotta... you gotta do it for my brother and his family and for everybody who lives on our Earth."

"What are you asking, Bea?" he says slowly, frowning.

"John, I need you to kill me before they get a chance to go in there and find all this shit out," she says, and his jaw drops. She straightens up a bit. "It's- i-it's what has to be done, John, they're gonna-"

"No," he says flatly, huffing out a breath. "No."

"-you gotta," she continues miserably. "You're gonna have to destroy my brain, John, they'll be able to get what they want from a whole one. You gotta... you just gotta get it done."

"What about you, what about your family?" he asks desperately, and she shakes her head.

"Come on, John, you know I'm not good for anything," she says softly, waving a hand. "A-and I mean- look, my brother already made this decision, John, Earth or me? Of course the answer's Earth. Look, if you make it quick you won't even- it won't be so bad, and then all those people-"

"No," he tells her again, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Look, kid, I don't know- I don't know how many times somebody told you that you weren't worth saving-"

"-John, it's everybody on Earth," she says, flinching back. "And it's everybody he's out there in space helping with the Rebellion, John, it's- it's all of his friends, it's the people he's fought for, it's-"

"No, Bea," he says simply.

"It's _him,_ " she continues harshly, and he puts his hands on her face, cupping her cheeks and looking at her eyes, even when hers blur up too much and she can't see his anymore. "If this is the only thing I can e-ever do for him, if it's the only thing I'm good for, you gotta, John-"

"Bea, there's nothing you can say to make losing you worth it to _me_ ," he tells her, and she doesn't know how to respond to something that ludicrous. He ducks down to press a kiss onto the top of her forehead, and gives her a sad smile. "Sorry, kiddo. I can't."

"But-" she takes a deep breath, then another. "John, that means- that means they'll be coming for our planet next."

"No," he says slowly, his smile fading entirely. "There's another way... Look, I don't like it, but there's a way to get that information out of your head so that when they process you, they can't find it. And it might not be permanent, but... this is our last resort, okay? Worst case scenario, if we know we can't get you out of this, if we know there's no way to talk our ways out of here or escape before they do this to you."

"What is it?" she asks, and he sighs, taking a tiny canister out of a compartment on his belt.

"Class-A amnestic spray," he says, frowning. "These things have a pretty short shelf-life, and I don't know what all that time we spent in that weird purgatory dimension did to it. It erases targeted memories- there's, ah... there's a pretty long list of instructions on how to use them, but- we should be able to figure out how to erase everything related to your brother and how to get to Earth from here. At least temporarily- it can usually be reversed as long as we do it right."

"It's some kind of... aerosol drug thing?" she asks slowly, watching him put it away. "And it'll make me forget? So- like maybe they can peek in there, see I don't know anything, and let me go, right?"

"It's not foolproof," he says insistently. "That's why it's our Plan D- we need to figure out Plans A through C first before we even think of this one."

"When is anything ever foolproof?" she challenges, waggling her eyebrows at him. He doesn't smile at her, patting a hand over her scruff of hair and flattening it back a little.

"And what if that just pisses them off?" he asks quietly. "What if they kill you instead of letting you go?"

"Aw, John," she mutters, ducking away. "It's not like I was good for anything, anyway-"

He buries her in a hug, startling her into silence. "No, kid, don't say stuff like that. We're gonna get out of this. We'll get you out of this. You think your brother's hot shit, that's alright, we can work with that, we can convince these jokers to let you go."

He doesn't notice when she slides the little canister out of his pocket. She's pretty sure that was a pretty slick move, one she could be proud of. She hopes she doesn't forget how to pick pockets like this.

She hopes he's not mad at her for this later.

"People used to ask me where Rick went," she mutters into his shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut. She doesn't want to forget this. She doesn't want to forget him. "I always used to tell them my brother got eaten by wolves on the Connecticut turnpike."

"There aren't any wolves in Connecticut," he points out, and she huffs a small, wet laugh against his chest.

"Finally, somebody who gets it," she says, before the door opens again.

"You. Up," an alien- a Gromflomite? God, she'll never remember it now- says, pointing. John tenses, moving to protect her, even now.

"I'm coming with," he says firmly. "She is my daughter. You can't question her without me being present."

"W-what?" the alien says blankly, taking a step back. John puffs his chest out, as if he isn't bruised and starving and shaking with weariness himself.

"Section 4-1 of the Interdimensional Dewey Decimal System Code of Prisoner's Conduct," he says importantly. "Look it up if you must, but if you go against the Library's laws, trust me, kidnapping and imprisoning a Foundation agent and a civilian will be the least of your issues."

"Uh-" the alien says, backing out of the door. "I'm getting a supervisor."

The door shuts again, and Bea sniffles into her sleeve. "Oh my God, John, did you just lie and tell that alien that the Dewey Decimal System is a code of, of interdimensional law things?"

"Well, I didn't totally lie- the Library does have some laws and rules that they don't want to get on the wrong side of. Are any of those laws about treatment of prisoners from the wrong dimension? No. No they are not." He smiles, giving her shoulder a squeeze. "Look, we might have some time to think of a plan before they come back. The interrogators might not even know what to look for with you, they might just screw around looking at random shit like they did with me. And I'll be able to  make sure they don't go anywhere too awful."

He gives her a surprised look, reaching over and brushing tears off of her face. She doesn't know when she started crying. "Don't- it's gonna be okay, Bea. I mean, sure, it's gonna hurt, but I'll be with you, I promise."

And he means it. She doesn't know what to make of it. He means that it's going to be okay, just like he means that she's worth saving, that it's worth it to him just to have her around. She doesn't understand what to make of all this. Nobody's ever-

The door opens and John tenses, rises up just a bit, ready to defend her with his entire self, as if he really could.

"It's okay," Bea tells him, and it's been a handful of weird, horrible months with him, but he knows her well enough by now to turn sharply, to realize what she's doing with the canister in her hand.

"Bea, no-" before the spray hits and everything starts burning and _oh_ -

-it hurts, it hurts, she's not sure if she's swearing or shrieking or weeping but her brain is _burning_ and it's going and it's everything and something is in her head, raking through her skull with sticky fingers and laughing and it _hurts_ -

-and she doesn't remember, for one sickening moment that stretches out forever and ever and ever, she doesn't remember who she is, she doesn't remember what she is, vague words and associations flit across her brain in shudders and starts, and she could be any of those things, she doesn't know, she doesn't remember, she doesn't know-

-and she opens her eyes. She knows the face in front of her ~~_home not alone held safe wanted loved_~~ is John Savage. John's some kind of (paramilitary science organization?) military type guy, and he's been helping her. She knows he's been helping her-

-she doesn't know why he's been helping her. His hands are on her face and his dark brown eyes are full of tears, and there's an alien in the doorway, unimpressed with the two of them. The man in front of her is John Savage. Names are important. What is her name?

There was a guy with a van in Atlanta, and she remembers kindness but not his name. Names are important.

_she doesn't even remember the word ~~greg~~ _

She has a name, right? John has a name. John is important. John's crying, and even as the alien (alien? why an alien?) yanks her up to her feet and tells her that she is going to be processed, she tries to tell him that it's gonna be okay. He's with her. It's gonna be okay.

She has a name. She's sure she has a name. (Does she? Who uses it?)

She's strapped onto a table and something inhumanly gray and faceless slaps something metallic onto her neck and growls at her, in a voice that almost sounds like a person, that it's to keep her from screaming as she's being processed. Something wide and sharp approaches the side of her forehead, and her face is numb, even her bones are numb, because it keeps going towards her, even as it leaves her field of vision. She should see it. She should be able to feel it. Something hot and thick starts running down her neck and onto her shoulder and down her shirt, and she wonders idly what it is.

Something goes blank and dull in her head. She doesn't know if she's screaming. Everything goes blank and dull. Everything is gray. She wants to go back to John. John wants her. John thinks she's important. She wants to make John proud of her.

She thinks she might be drooling a little as an alien leads her away from the table. They speak English, maybe. There was a movie about aliens that she's seen a ton of times. It's a great movie- not her favorite but great- and it has a lady in it named Ellen Ripley. It's a good name. She wants to tell John. She wants to ask John if he knows her name. Maybe, if he doesn't know her name, maybe he'll help her make a new one.

"Sell the young one to the first buyer," an alien suggests, ignoring the way John throws himself against the door, howling invectives. "The Foundation agent can go to auction, they're worth more as long as they don't do that damned memory wipe thing on themselves first."

 


	12. Cool Blue Reason

It's a quiet enough weekend, for their family. The three of them are relaxing on the couch and watching interdimensional cable when Morty's parents walk in, somewhat disheveled and more than a little angry-looking. Morty winces, even though Rick doesn't seem to notice.

"Dad," Beth says, her voice strained.

"Hey, pumpkin," Rick says automatically. "We didn't save you any pizza."

"You left your phone in the car," Beth replies coolly, taking it out of her pocket. "You have a bunch of missed calls."

"No shit?" Rick asks, leaning over Morty to look at her. "Was it something urgent?"

"I didn't answer," Beth says, glancing at the screen as Jerry ducks out of the room- not quite guilty-looking, Morty notes, but with an avoidant expression on his face, something he's been getting more and more often when trying to escape arguments with Beth or with Rick. "Seven missed calls from Ripley S. No voicemails or texts, though."

"Oh, so not _that_ urgent," Rick reasons, holding his hand out. He doesn't notice, Morty realizes with a sinking feeling, that Beth's not holding it towards him.

"So who _is_ that?" Beth asks, her voice lilting a little at the end of the question. Morty and Summer exchange glances, and it hits him suddenly that Summer's come to the same conclusion he has, even if they've never tried to discuss it- Rick hasn't said anything to them, and from what they've seen of this Ripley person she might not even know herself.

Morty's known since he saw an old yearbook scan from before Summer was born, a blond girl who looked then like his sister does now, making a face she could have only learned from Rick, with a nihilistic senior quote that sounds exactly like the kind of thing he'd expect from a teenaged Rick. Morty's known since Rick dragged him to meet Doofus Rick and that Rick's Morty and the smiling blonde lady who'd introduced herself as his Aunt Bea. Morty's known since a gore-splattered woman his mom's age, looking like what he'd expect if Beth had been particularly athletic, looking like Doofus Bea if she'd been through a butcher's dumpster, greeted him and Rick with none of the kind of awkwardness or posturing this family is known for, since she peppered Rick with curious questions about the people they might know in common, since she asked Rick for help and he gave her everything she needed and more, no questions asked.

He's known, and Summer's looking at him with a sort of concerned desperation, because if anything, she's smarter and more intuitive than he is, and if he found out about That Other Sanchez that nobody ever talks about then she must have, too, and she's spent just as much time around the woman who met them last February as he has, and if it's obvious to him it's obvious to her, too.

Rick raises his brow at Beth, still holding his hand out.

"You've met," he says simply. "Dimension-jumper who had a rough time getting home. Got mixed up with one of the other non-Citadel Ricks on her way here. She's doing some weird portal shit out in Oregon now."

"So what, is she some sort of..." Beth waves a hand. "Some kind of clone situation? Alternate dimension you? Alternate dimension me?"

"She's _from here_ ," Rick says, his patience visibly worn down to nothing. "Beth, give me my phone."

"-or some kind of, I dunno, secret illegitimate daughter?" Beth asks archly, and Rick stands up. Morty gapes at them for a second, and he can imagine with awful clarity what Beth is thinking. About the same age, looks a lot like Beth, and- as far as she knows, he guesses- just showed up out of nowhere, getting special treatment from Rick all of a sudden.

At fourteen he knows a little too much about what jealousy looks and sounds like from his mother.

"Okay, clearly something's up your ass about this," Rick says flatly. "I don't know where you're getting this idea, Beth-"

"I'm not the _kids_ , Dad, don't act like it isn't obvious why I would think that," she snaps, and Morty flinches slightly despite himself. Summer scoots minutely closer to him, her expression hardening for a moment before going flat and apathetic.

Rick is just staring at her. Morty thinks he knows Rick pretty well by now, and guesses that he's torn between wanting to defer to his urge to protect and console his daughter and the urge to correct her.

"So who was the mother?" Beth asks dryly, taking his silence as admission of guilt. "Some kind of side piece? Somebody you loved more than-"

"This is none of your business," Rick says, pulling out his portal gun and opening a green vortex in the floor. He steps through it without a backwards glance; Beth taps her foot on the floor, clearly agitated, before turning and storming out of the room.

"We need to t-talk," Morty mutters, and Summer squeezes his hand in agreement.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Alright," Mabel says briskly, banging a gavel- well, a squeaky pink hammer- on the T-rex skull in lieu of a table. She's wearing the tophat from when she was made a congressman. "When I pull your name out of this hat-" she shakes Stan's slightly damp fez in her other hand, "-you're going to make one _true_ statement about what's been going on this summer."

Dipper does, honestly, think this is a good idea- kind of a weird execution, but he's starting to think that letting Mabel infuse her Mabelness into the situation was a good way to get rid of some of the tension in the room after Ripley announced that they're going to be honest about all the weird stuff happening in Gravity Falls and to their family in particular. Ford, Ripley, and Stan are scrunched together on the couch, looking uncomfortable, and the kitchen chairs were pulled in for everybody else. Grandpa Shermie and Grandma Jessie are on the other side of the room, with Fiddleford on the ground next to Stan's legs with Waddles in his lap. After a moment's thought, Dipper squishes onto the couch between Ripley and Stan, his Journal in his arms.

"Right-" Mabel pulls out a scrap of paper with a flourish. "Aunt Ripley!" Ripley tenses next to Dipper, and she clears her throat.

"Well- okay. I... it has to be true and about stuff happening here?" she asks desperately, and Mabel taps her squeaky hammer against her chin.

"Since you only got here this summer you can say something true about other stuff, too," she says generously, and Ripley nods stiffly.

"Okay- okay. A true thing, um, that- that is a real thing that happened," says, looking at her lap until Ford quietly snakes his hand into hers, lacing their fingers together. "Okay. Um. A true thing is that... I... am scared of uh, of statues of people. Like, every single statue of a person, just, gives me the creeps and the willies-"

"We already knew that," Stan complains on Dipper's other side.

" _We_ didn't know that," Grandpa Shermie snipes across the room, and Ripley hunches her shoulders a little.

"Um... I didn't used to be scared of statues, but, uh... I think it has to do with what... what happened to me back in February, um. T-tasha was a statue of herself when she doing things in the mindscape, a-and... and I think, uh. That might be why I'm scared of them now." Ford's hand tightens around hers, and after a moment Stan reaches over Dipper's head to put a hand on her shoulder. Dipper doesn't know who this Tasha person is, or what she did to Aunt Ripley in February that makes her scared of statues now, but- well, whatever it is, he hates this person for doing it. His grandparents are frowning at them- they're nice and he doesn't think they'd be mad at her for what she said, but they might be confused.

"Question," Grandma Jessie says. "What's the mindscape?" Dipper releases a tiny breath, glad to have guessed right.

"It's like, the personal mental dimension generated by every individual's brain," Ripley offers, a little more sure-sounding. "Everybody has one. It's pretty good for organizing your thoughts and whatever- Ford's got a thing for going into other people's, it's pretty fun if you wanna do it."

"We defeated an evil dream demon that way!" Mabel interjects proudly. "I used my Kitten Fists and synthesized music, and Dipper laser-eyed a hole right through him, and-"

"Hard pass," Grandpa Shermie says, blinking.

"Soft maybe," Grandma Jessie says, elbowing him a little. He huffs a sigh.

" _Maybe_ we'll do this mind-meld stuff, _conditionally_ ," he amends. "Alright, Miss Mabel, let's have our next one, I'm rarin' to get this finished."

"Okay!" Mabel says cheerfully, glancing meaningfully at Dipper. The two of them have already planned out what they want to say tonight- mostly, it's all designed to get their dumb family to start talking instead of pretending that they're not all fighting.

"Next we have- Grunkle Stan!" she chirrups, and Stan groans a sigh into the palm of his hand before speaking.

 "Alright," he says heavily. "I, uh- so part of the reason I decided to, uh... to pretend to be Ford... was because there were some guys out lookin' for me. This one guy in particular, Rico, was, uh... pretty mad at me even before I came up here, but then I skipped town instead'a payin' him back, and, ah... well. I found out that somebody who used to know us was sniffin' around Portland, and I knew that if 'Stan Pines' was still alive, they'd keep lookin'. Gravity Falls newspapers _still_ don't ask for an actual death certificate if you buy an obituary."

"Paying him back for what?" Dipper asks curiously, and Stan reaches over and gives him a small pat on the head, chuckling nervously.

"Eh, rent money, mostly," he says carefully, and if Dipper caught the lie then he knows Grandpa Shermie did- he's making The Face, an unimpressed scowl that nobody ever wants pointed at them.

"I already told Miss Jess that," Ripley says, after a moment.

"What?" Stan snaps, looking up. "Why?"

"To explain why you were pretending you were dead," Ripley says slowly. "Although I'm, probably, just as confused as everybody else here why you pretended to everybody in this room, too."

"Because I-" Stan starts, his voice cracking slightly. "I-I mean, at first it was just because I figured it'd keep everything... clean, you know? I might as well'a been dead anyway, i-it couldn't hurt to make it so that if anybody did track you down, you wouldn't be able to tell anybody that I was still-"

Dipper knows what a Pines Family Meltdown looks like, and Grandpa Shermie is showing all the signs.

"-and it was just gonna be the one phone call, but then you started- started talking about holding a funeral, and I thought- I thought at least I could see you one more time, anyway, it was just gonna be the once but then you just kept _tryin'_ and I thought, when I get Ford back, he'd want for you t'not hate him, and you'd want a real relationship with'im, and he'd just- you know, just- fit back in with you," Stan says, and even to Dipper's ears he sounds miserable. Aunt Ripley's mouth is pressed against the top of Dipper's head, but her other hand is squeezing Stan's shoulder.

"You knucklehead," Grandpa Shermie says thickly. "What part of the last twenty-five years made you think I didn't want _both_ of you?"

Stan ducks his head, fidgeting with his hands. "Sherm, look at how mad you are. Anyway,  _he's_ the-"

"If you say he's better'n you or some kinda horseshit, Lee, _I swear_ ," Grandpa Shermie roars, jumping to his feet. "I spent _seventeen years_ lookin' for you and when you finally make contact you're pretending to be Ford! Do you have any idea- do you have _any idea_ what that felt like? Everybody thought I was losing my fuh-" He makes brief eye contact with Dipper, lowering his voice a little. "Everybody thought I was losing my fudging mind, Stan, I thought I was going crazy with grief, and it was _you, lying_ , because you thought for some reason I wouldn't _want_ you!"

He moves in, arms out, and Stan flinches bodily back. Grandpa Shermie freezes, breathing hard. Fiddleford moves discreetly over until he's closer to Ripley than Stan, evidently trying to get out of the way of any sudden movements.

" _I'm not Pops_ ," he says, his voice rough. "I wasn't- Stan, you idiot, come here before I start cryin'."

It's an awkward hug; Grandpa Shermie's thrown his entire body into it and, Dipper suspects, may have started crying anyway. Stan is stiff and tentative, although he squishes his arms around Grandpa Shermie's shoulders after a moment. Maybe he's even whispering- _'m sorry sherm, 'm sorry_ \- but Dipper is doing everything in his power not to intrude on this moment. He tries to look away to get away from the scene, but Ford's looking pale and tense next to Aunt Ripley.

It strikes Dipper that Grunkle Ford being gone hurt everybody a lot more than he realized. It strikes him that this is the first time Grunkle Ford's even thought about it.

Mabel clears her throat, obviously sniffling. Stan and Grandpa Shermie back away from one another, looking tense and weirdly guilty- Stan, Dipper can understand, but he doesn't know why Grandpa Shermie would feel that way.

"Good talk," Grandma Jessie says cheerfully, dabbing at her eyes. "Who's next, plum blossom?"

"Grunkle Ford," Mabel says brightly.

"This doesn't seem entirely random," Ford says, frowning, and Ripley elbows his side. "Ow, okay, okay. Well- ah- we all know that I was... gone, sometime in, ah, midwinter of 1982."

"February," Stan mutters, and Ford nods sharply.

"Sherman, Jessenia, you're the only two who, uh... who don't know where I was," he says, looking down at his knees. "I may have been- pulled into another dimension and forced to flee for my life across countless alternate realities and alien planets. I've only just been home on this planet in the last... two weeks? Three weeks?"

"Four and a bit, babe. See?" Ripley asks Grandma Jess.

"Yeah," she replies faintly. Ford elbows Ripley a little.

"You _told_ her _that_?" he asks in a hiss.

"Secrets don't make friends," she hisses back, and Ford groans, rubbing his face.

"And we're just going to believe this," Grandpa Shermie asks slowly. "I mean, dream demons and psychic business, alright, I don't like it but Ma had a Touch. But- some kinda Mystery Science Theater stuff, now?"

"Oh, that's easy, we can prove that one," Aunt Ripley says brightly. "The portal machine's downstairs-"

"Ripley!" Ford says, aghast.

"-and if you want to spare yer knees the walk, I can open up a portal right here," she continues, whipping out the handle to the laser sword Dipper's seen her use. More than one person lets out a startled squawk.

"Do not do that!" Ford pleads, raking his hand through his hair. "Ripley, for goodness sake, opening a portal this close to the portal downstairs, the proximity could tear the fabric of reality in half-"

"That's weird," she says, too-sweet, "it shouldn't be an issue if the downstairs portal is completely inactive."

Several pairs of eyes turn towards her and Ford, and he turns pink, folding his arms.

"I knew it," she says flatly, looking away. "I mean, obviously, I didn't _know_ it because I tried to, I dunno, _trust_ you first-"

"Ripley, please, _not now_ ," Ford asks, pressing his fingers under his glasses, against his sinuses. Ripley's mouth presses into a line, and she leans back.

"Is this thing dangerous?" Grandma Jessie asks, and Ford hesitates for a moment. "You have some- some kind of dangerous machine in the house?"

"It doesn't present a danger to the kids in this state," Ford says, drumming his fingertips on his knee. "I would not allow anything inappropriately dangerous around the kids-"

"Ohoho," Ripley says sarcastically. "That's right. No inappropriate dangers, just _appropriate_ dangers. Got it."

"Ripley, are you _tryin'_ to get the kids-" Stan starts, then stops, visibly embarassed.

"Uh," Dipper feels the need to cut in, glancing nervously at his grandparents. "Mabel and I are okay. We're totally okay."

"Yeah, we've been able to handle everything that's happened," Mabel adds enthusiastically. Dipper feels rather than sees the adults on the couch with him squirm a little after that.

"Hoo boy," Grunkle Fidds says quietly from his seat with Waddles on the floor.

"You three," Grandpa Shermie says, pointing at Stan, Ford, and Ripley. "Are all going to explain _exactly what kind_ of "appropriate dangers" the kids have been around this summer."

Dipper pulls his hat down over his face with a quiet groan; this is going to take a while.

Fiddleford makes an uncomfortable noise, standing. "This, uh- this seems like the kind of thing that should be family-only," he says awkwardly, and more than one person starts to protest but it's Grandma Jessie who jumps to her feet.

"You're part of this family," she says vehemently, and when she realizes everyone's eyes are on her she sucks in a breath. Grandpa Shermie looks at her, and then Dipper sees his eyes widen as he puts two and two together. Dipper takes a careful glance around, but neither of his other Grunkles or Aunt Ripley looks like they know what's going on.

"Your name's McGucket?" Grandpa Shermie says slowly, looking over at Grunkle Fidds.

"That's right," he admits nervously, and Grandma Jessie breathes out a sobbing laugh.

"I almost took a turn when I heard your name," she admits, sitting back down. "I-I... I understand you've had some sort of, uh, amnesia for a while now, is that right?"

"Y-yeah," Grunkle Fidds says slowly, and Grandma Jessie gives him a watery smile.

"Not too many McGuckets to be found outside of Goshawksville, Tennessee," she says, and Fiddleford's body stiffens with shocked recognition. "I had... I had a little, uh... brother. Once. Gone for a long, long time. Decades. We called him Fiddlehead growin' up, though, because-"

"-that's a type of fern," Fiddleford mutters quietly, but when he looks up there's no other spark of recognition, just a puzzled, almost bland lack of understanding. "So you... you think we might be kin?"

The falling, failing smile on his grandma's face hurts Dipper, deep in his chest. When he looks for it, he can see it- their noses, their jawlines, the kind blue eyes that Grandma Jessie's always had, the shape of their hands and fingers. He wonders how come he didn't see it before.

"Well-" she starts to say, fumbling. "May- mayhap."

"I'm sorry," Fiddleford says softly. "I don't-"

He runs his hand through his short white hair.

"I don't- I don't recall," he says, sounding distressed and heading for the door. Aunt Ripley makes to get up and follow him, but he waves distractedly at her before leaving. "No, I- I think I need a minute of quiet, darlin'."

"Okay," Aunt Ripley whispers, so quiet that Dipper thinks he's the only one who heard.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The rush of wind and flash of now-familiar green portal-light appears where Summer had guessed it would- not in the bedroom where Rick's been set up  to sleep ever since Morty was a toddler, but in the garage workshop. Morty eases the door open, a glass of water in one hand, a bottle of aspirin in the other.

"Hey, Rick," Morty says quietly, and Rick raises his eyes to consider his grandson a bit blearily.

"H-hey Morty," he says roughly. Morty holds out the glass and the bottle; after a few seconds Rick takes both with a quiet muttered thanks.

He's met a handful of other Ricks and Morties, of course. Apparently most of them live in the same place- no Summers or Beths or Jerries, although sometimes a handful of visitors and travelers who can't seem to find their way out of the Citadel. Rick hates that place, but Morty knows he sometimes goes there to talk to one or two Ricks he gets along okay with. He's doesn't know where Rick went tonight, and he can't imagine trying to ask.

Morty and Summer know their Rick is called Softy, and they know it's because their grandfather, for whatever reason, is sentimental- maybe not to the degree that Doofus Rick is, but enough that they've never met another Morty or Summer who grew up with their grandfather the way they did.

Rick doesn't like the nickname, but an unsentimental man wouldn't have gone to the lengths he went to when Ripley showed up out of nowhere and asked for his help.

"Y-you know, Rick," Morty says carefully, making sure that Rick can't glance over to see him watching for a reaction. "I don't know that whole... story, whatever it is."

Rick scoffs softly, but he doesn't interrupt, so Morty plunges ahead.

"Summer and I, uh... w-we really think it's cool that you found Aunt Ripley again, after... after all that time," he says, and he hears the creak of Rick's chair as he sits up.

Rick smells like diesel fuel and moonshine, but the hug- rarer now that Morty's older, but something he's always had access to as a kid- is firm and familiar. Morty gives him a squeeze back, and is rewarded with a small, watery smile when he finally pulls away.

"You know," Rick says quietly. "You kids are p-pretty damn smart, Morty. When the fuck did that happen?"

"Yeah, they tell me that shit's genetic," Morty offers, and Rick snorts a laugh and almost looks normal. Morty gives him a nudge.

"I don't know if it even makes sense to talk to her, or to Mom, about... all that," Morty says, and Rick's smile fades a little. "But we like her... a-and I think you miss her. And maybe Mom would understand, a little?"

"You think so, huh?" Rick asks, and Morty shrugs, sitting down on the edge of the workbench.

"Well, if it goes badly, y-you can just pull a Rick and swap out for some other dimension," he says, grinning faintly when Rick swats him on the arm.

"Tryin' to get rid of me, are ya?" Rick asks, giving him an awkward smile in return. "Brat."

"Dick," Morty replies, and Rick loops an arm around his shoulders, digging his knuckles against his scalp.

"You oughta watch your fuckin' language, you rascal," Rick chortles, and Morty ducks easily out of his grasp, huffing and puffing.

It hasn't fixed anything- Mom still spent the evening fuming and ranting to Dad about how she'd suspected but never knew for sure that Grandpa Rick'd had some weird secret family, and Morty and Summer had still hunkered down to avoid her so they wouldn't be forced to say anything bad about Rick, and Rick's still looking hollowed-out and old, in a way Morty's started to see more and more when his guard's down, and Rick's still drunk or high or both.

But.

Morty and Summer, at least, are on the same page. And Rick, at least, is smiling a little, and knows that they know, and didn't respond badly to the suggestion that maybe everybody involved needs to be in the loop, too.

Morty decides to press his luck.

"You wanna get out of here?" he asks hopefully. Rick gives him a questioning look. "You, Summer, me, head over to Oregon to check out the alien crash site they were talking about?" He offers a small, hopeful smile.

"Heh," Rick says, his smile fading as he picks up a tool and a random-looking gewgaw and gets to work fiddling it apart. "Well... w-well, uh, maybe... maybe tomorrow, kid."

"Tomorrow, then," Morty says, and Rick glances over at him, his eyes dark despite the shaky attempt at a careless smirk.

"Sure, then. Tomorrow. I'll need a chance to call Ripley back and let her know we're on our way, anyway." Morty smiles and turns to leave; Summer's going to want to make sure she has decent hiking shoes if they're looking at spending a couple of days out there. Rick clears his throat, and Morty turns to give him a look. "Hey, uh- M-Morty."

"Yeah, Rick?" Morty asks, and the smile on Rick's face is fleeting and genuine.

"You're a pretty good kid. You, uh... you've always been a lot like, uh. Like your Aunt. You're... you're a good kid," he repeats roughly, and Morty smiles. He really is a sentimental old man.

"Thanks, Rick," Morty says quietly.

They're not really a family that says _i love you_ but Morty thinks he gets the idea.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Grandpa Shermie and Grandma Jessie are no longer frowning- they're sort of staring, though, their mouths slightly open, with the kind of dazed expressions that Dipper remembers catching on himself and Mabel for a few days at the beginning of their stay here.

Stan and Aunt Ripley are sweating next to him- Ford doesn't seem to be as guilty-feeling about everything, but, also, he's been around for less than half the amount of time Aunt Ripley has, and there's a lot of trouble that mostly Stan seemed to be responsible for getting them into. Stan's picking nervously at his fingernails, and Ripley's left leg is jiggling rapidly- probably, Dipper thinks, a habit picked up from Grunkle Might-Actually-Be-Related Fidds.

Grandpa Shermie takes his glasses off, cleaning them distractedly.

"...so," Mabel says awkwardly, bouncing the squeaky hammer against the dinosaur skull. "We've... been busy. And we're okay! And we've learned, like, a ton of valuable life lessons!"

"Yeah," Dipper chimes in, and Grandpa Shermie sighs heavily, running his hand over his face.

"It... it was a bad idea to send you kids here for the entire three months," he says quietly, and Stan curls in a little on himself, looking down. "This isn't Stan's fault, one hundred percent, we knew he'd never really been around kids for any length of time, and if we'd been up here more we probably wouldn't've thought a town like this was... safe for you two. We should... we should probably be taking you kids home with us when we leave on Sunday."

"I-I mean," Stan starts to say, cutting himself off as he rubs the back of his neck, as if he can't even make words anymore. Dipper clutches the front of his vest, exchanging a nervous look with Mabel- it hadn't really occurred to either of them that their grandparents wouldn't be okay with what they've seen and done this summer, or that they'd think Stan was bad at this.

"Stan, sweetie," Grandma Jessie says, and Stan gets up, looking over at her with a wide smile.

"It's gettin' late," he says, fingers plucking at the button on his suit jacket. "Should, ah... should start headin' to bed around now. Saturdays are pretty busy for the Shack. I'll..."

He trails off, looking lost, before turning towards the door. "G'night, everybody."

Dipper sort of hopes that Ford or Ripley would jump in with an argument, something to convince Grandpa Shermie that it's safe because they're here, because they've been looking out for him and Mabel all summer and even when they couldn't protect them entirely they tried to.

They're both staring at the floor, looking just as forlorn and confused as Stan did.

Aunt Ripley clears her throat and for a second Dipper thinks-

"I, uh, I left something at Tyler's," she says, standing abruptly. "I'll be... back. Thanks for... thanks for uh... for listening."

"Uh, wait, do-" Ford asks, looking up at her. "Do you... need any help with-"

"I'm fine, thanks," she says automatically, and he grabs her hand.

"Should you be alone right now?" he asks, glancing pointedly down at the bandages still wrapped around her right arm that nobody's given Dipper a straight story about. Grandpa Shermie and Grandma Jess look super uncomfortable, though.

"I'll see if Fidds wants to go for a ride," she says flatly, pulling away. Grandma Jess gives Grandpa Shermie an uneasy look as she leaves.

"Grandma? Grandpa?" Mabel asks softly, playing with her hat. "We would've said something if we didn't... like it here."

"I know, sugar," Grandpa Shermie says heavily, scratching his face through his beard. "We should probably get you two into bed, too. Your great-uncle was right about that."

"Um," Ford says, getting awkwardly up and leaving Dipper alone on the couch. "I just- I wanted to say I'm sorry, Sherman. For... the last time you saw me."

Grandpa Shermie blinks, then nods, smiling sadly. "Aw, Stanford, I forgave you forever ago for that. It's the four years of ignorin' my letters before you got, uh, sucked into space that I'm pissed about."

"Ah. Alright." Grunkle Ford says, and Grandpa Shermie huffs a small sound at him.

"I always... figured you were still alive, somewhere," he says. "I'm real fudgin' glad you're home. I haven't had a chance to start cryin' about that one, but, you know. Keep a look out, coz it's comin'."

"You didn't used to be a crybaby," Ford says weakly, and Grandpa Shermie grins.

"Havin' family changes you, Ford."

"Yeah, I suppose so." Grunkle Ford stands up, giving Dipper a pat on the head. "Well... goodnight, Dipper, Mabel. Goodnight Sherman. Jessenia, it was- it was good to see you again. Good night."

Moving through the Shack and getting ready for bed feels unfamiliar and weird, like it did their first night here. Mabel's quiet for a while, before rolling over in her bed to call softly to Dipper from across the attic, her face lit with the soft, warm glow of the firefly jar Aunt Ripley gave them.

"Do you really think they're going to make us leave?" she asks, and Dipper thinks about Stan and Ford and Ripley and Fiddleford, scattering one by one.

"I dunno," he says, worry knotting his insides. "I mean... I hope not."

Mabel rolls over onto her side, her shoulders hunching under the blanket. Dipper quietly pulls Journal 3 out from under his pillow, running his palm over the gold leaf sillouette of Ford's hand. The green glow of the fireflies makes the red of the journal look almost brown-gray.

It takes a long time before Dipper can get to sleep.


	13. Where Would I Be?

_Evergreen sentinels stand in a ring_

_Together resist the all-seeing king_

_Scattered spirits return to the trees_

_Harking the command within the breeze_

_Ignorant of the roles they play_

_The spirits converge from far away_

 

_~ ~ ~ ~ ~_

 

Pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain.

Imagine infinity.

Having trouble?

Imagine a life. Even a simple one- imagine a microbe living on an ant. Imagine the path they take. It's a microbe, it can only do so much. And yet, its path is different from the path that every other microbe that lives on that same ant takes. Imagine the path that ant takes. Imagine warring armies of ants. Imagine the injured snake, too slow to escape as millions of army ants swarm around it, tearing its still-living body into miniscule ant-sized bites. Imagine the photographer for National Geographic, shooting video as the snake dies in the middle of the rainforest. Imagine every person who will ever see the video. Imagine yourself. Imagine hundreds of identical worlds where this has happened, in this order.

Now imagine that for every world where this happens, there are a dozen more where it doesn't. Imagine the worlds where the snakes swarm to eat enormous ants. Imagine the worlds where the snake is merely the bait, and the ants swarm the photographer. Imagine the worlds where everything is fire, and the snake curls into dead ash as the ants devour it. Imagine the worlds where the photographer snatches the snake up and eats it himself. Imagine the worlds where you are the photographer. Imagine the worlds where you are an ant. Imagine every single microbe.

Imagine infinity.

Not quite, but close.

Imagine making it better. Imagine making it yours. It's all, already, inside your head. You created every photographer, every ant, every snake. You created every rainforest in your mind, you created every planet where rainforests exist. Every video of the swarm, and every person who saw the video, and every person who saw "ants" and "insects" tagged and immediately hit the back button. They are all inside of you. They are all yours. All you have to do is make it official.

Maybe all you have to do is kill a few ants. No real tragedy there- ants are exterminated every day. There's billions of them, just in this one spot, and the differences between them are superficial at best, and you're bigger than they are, and you live on a cosmic scale that an ant doesn't have _any_ ability to comprehend. You were ancient and terrible when the ant was hatched. The ant's great-great-great-grandchildren will wither and die long before you do. What difference does any one ant make?

Imagine power. A fool will say the ability to kill the ants is power. Anyone can kill ants. An educated fool will say the ability to control the ants is power. This lacks imagination and scale, but it's not too far from the truth.

Power is becoming every ant, on every world, in every universe. Power is becoming every snake, every microbe, every photographer, every person sitting and watching this happen on their computer or their smartphone, all at once. Power is becoming infinity. Power is being the universe, is being vast enough to engulf and devour every other universe that exists, that has ever existed, that will ever exist.

Whether you kill the ants one at a time with a magnifying glass, or an entire nest all at once with fire, **you're missing the point**. The ants think they're the important part of this story because, for as long as they can remember, you've had your attention on them. When you walk away, they think it means they've won, and that is because they cannot see that you've gone to get a can of gas and a box of matches. When the nest is burning, the ants assume this is the end of the world, and that is because they cannot comprehend that you are untouched and unmatched and there are an infinite number of ant nests out there.

Stop thinking about the ants. **You're still missing the point.**

A broken toy doesn't mean the end of the game. It means the game has to start over somewhere else.

~~**_pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain_ ** ~~

 

__~ ~ ~ ~ ~_ _

 

_Forge hungers, Forge makes_

_Sword hungers, Sword breaks_

 

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Fiddleford opens the door of the Ripleymobile with a creak, climbing into the passengerside seat and folding his hands on his lap. They sit in silence for a few minutes, watching the trees. The sun's not entirely up yet, but it's light enough outside to see the moths that had been attracted to the light of the open car door flutter away. A rabbit crosses their field of vision- it's naked, so probably not one of the talking ones. A bird swoops, too fast to figure out what kind it is. Eventually, the light grows.

"Did you-" Fiddleford starts, picking nervously at his ragged fingernails. "Did you sleep out here, Ripley?"

"It was fine," Ripley mutters, looking away. "I slept in cars for months before I came up here."

"It don't sound like it was fine," Fiddleford says gently. "Sounds like it was bad."

"It wasn't bad," she replies. "I just... didn't feel like I could... in there."

He's quiet for a while, and she doesn't feel like turning the radio on, but the silence is too much.

"I just-" she starts, drumming her hands on the steering wheel. "They let me stay because I was losin' my mind. They let me stay because I was there all night trying to get Ford back anyway. Stan was lonely and the kids were bored and I could fix that a little bit. I- I did okay, for a while, didn't I?"

"You helped me, yanno," he points out, and she dips her head in a nod.

"I could stay... because I was... I was useful," she says softly. "I could help you and him and the kids and I could protect you and I could work to get Ford back. And now... and now Ford's back, and I'm possibly gonna turn into a monster and eat y'all, maybe-"

"-I don't think you would," he interrupts.

"-and the kids are going home early now and Stan's lonelier than ever," she continues, breathing raggedly. "And- and if I hadn't meddled, last night wouldn'ta happened, and if I hadn't meddled, Shermie and Jess wouldn'ta come up here at all, and if I'd _been better_ I wouldn'ta got infected with Tasha's- with Tasha, and-"

"-hold on just a minute-"

"-and Stan was so close to gettin' Ford back before I got here that he woulda done it himself within a year," she says, putting her face in her hands. "I fucked everything up, Fidds."

"You didn't fuck everything up," he says, giving her bicep a shake. "You stop that. You didn't fuck anything up. Look at me. I ain't livin' in the dump, Ripley. You helped me. You fixed that."

"Stan fixed that," she says quietly. "It's Stan's house. I-"

"You stop," he says, and when she turns her watery eyes on him he sighs. "Come on. Let's think this through, gal."

"I been thinkin' all night," she says.

"You been thinkin' wrong all night," he replies quickly. "And I know it. Yer too much like me; you end up all tangled up in the stuff you're worried about and when you're scared and trapped ya do stupid shit that hurts you and the people who love you. I don't gotta remember everything I lost to know what my brain did to let me get this way."

He gives her shoulder a squeeze, and she gives him a weak smile. "And here I thought all we had in common was amnesia and a love of shopping."

"Amnesia, shopping, and an unfortunate tendency to love them dumb Pines men," he amends, and she sniffles, grinning. He gives her a small nudge. "And maybe, you know. Lettin' our own dumb brains win sometimes."

"Maybe," she allows, and he scoots into the middle of the bench seat to press against her side. She puts an arm around him, sighing. "I still feel bad, Fidds."

"I know that," he says, sighing. "But look. It ain't the end of the world. You're here, safe. Ford's here, safe. Stan has his entire family back an' everybody's talkin' to him. What's the worst that kin happen?"

She shrugs mutely.

"Worst case scenario, the kids go home tomorrow, and they don't call or write as often as you want'em to," he says, sighing. "And you and Ford and Stan go down to California for the holidays together, and the kids come up for short visits, or alongside their parents and grandparents. An' you never wake up someplace where you're bein' hunted."

He pats her leg. "Don't sound all that bad, does it?"

"I guess," she admits, closing her eyes. "Except you forgot about me turnin' into a monster an' eatin' everybody."

"You been sayin' all summer Ford'll fix it," Fiddleford replies mildly.

"But what if he doesn't wanna," she says, and he gives her leg a light smack. "Ow."

"Now yer bein' foolish on purpose," he says confidently. "O'course he wants to fix it."

The silence stretches out again, comfortable rather than stifling this time. He gives her another nudge.

"You wanna go back inside now?" he asks.

"I still don't feel like I belong back inside," she says quietly. He thinks about it, gives her hand a squeeze, and moves back to sit properly in the shotgun seat.

"Alright, then you wanna go to the diner and git some Grownup Breakfast?"

"I love Grownup Breakfast," she says heavily, sitting up straight. "Okay. Let's go get breakfast." She buckles up, glancing over at him as he buckles himself in.

"You, uh-" Fiddleford trails off. "You didn't know that the kids' grandmother is my-" He bites down around the word, shaking his head. "M-my relation, d-did ya?"

"Surprised the hell outta me," Ripley tells him, shaking her head. "I guess if I look for it, I can see it, I just... wasn't lookin' for it."

"Yeah," he says, his voice rough enough that she hesitates before putting the key in the ignition.

"You wanna talk about it before we go?" she offers.

"I used up all last night cryin' about it," he says. "I could go fer some Grownup Coffee an' Grownup Pancakes."

"Awright then," she says, turning the car on to go.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

_The Guardian wanders, the Anchor waits,_

_The Heart sours, the Shield breaks,_

_The Star blazes, the Eye burns,_

_The Tree grows, the Warrior turns,_

_The Snake devours, the Fish toils,_

_The Scholar weeps, the River boils._

 

__~ ~ ~ ~ ~_ _

 

It's the knocking on is door that wakes him. He reaches tentatively out to the side, and finds only empty bed. He's just awake enough to find it ironic, how quickly he got used to finding her.

"C-come in," Ford says uncertainly, putting his glasses on and standing up. Shermie opens the door and stares at him for a moment, and Ford blushes, scratching the back of his head. "Good morning, Sherman."

"You like the Clash, now, Ford?" Shermie asks, gesturing at Ford's shirt.

"What? Oh, uh- I don't know. It's Ripley's," he mutters, scratching his chest uncomfortably through the black material. He'd hoped- again- that wearing it to bed would have given her a laugh, or at least gotten a smile out of her. Maybe he needs a refresher on what married people do to make each other happy. Or, possibly, a first lesson.

"Oh, uh- so she's not home... yet?" Shermie asks delicately, and Ford shrugs, moving around to the set of drawers to dig out the somewhat stiff new bluejeans Ripley bought him last week. "Ford, I- I have to ask you something."

"Okay," Ford mutters, snapping the price tag off and pulling the jeans on after a moment's inspection. Last night is still sour, still sore. He hopes Shermie doesn't want to actually ask him any questions about Feelings or... really anything like that. Ford doesn't think he can keep more than one Feelings Discussion straight in his head right now, and he feels dreadfully certain that Ripley's continued absence bodes ill. Ford glances over, but Shermie's eyes are on the drawings lining the walls, and after a moment he forgoes changing out of her shirt and merely layers a nice-looking sage-colored shirt with long sleeves and buttons and a collar over it.

"These are cute," Shermie says, looking Ford's way as he buttons the shirt up. The material is pretty soft- he isn't sure, now, if this is one of his shirts or one of Ripley's, but it fits alright, and it feels nice. He'll ask her about it later. "You got a few tattoos out there, did you?"

"Uh, yeah, a... fair few," Ford stammers, and Shermie nods.

"I have a couple of tattoos," Shermie says, and it occurs to Ford that this must be at least as awkward for Shermie as it is for him. Ford laces his fingers together a couple of times, gazing searchingly at Shermie while he looks around the room.

"Stanford," Shermie says quietly, as if he isn't entirely sure of it.

"That's right," Ford says, and Shermie nods.

"You have some kind of doomsday portal downstairs," he says, and Ford clears his throat.

"Well, eh- actually, yes," he admits, rubbing his hand through his hair. "It's- sort of. It's complicated, Sherman, I- I could explain it, though, the- the science behind it-"

"Actually-" Shermie pauses, stroking his beard a little. "Actually, Ford, I think you'd better show me."

"Oh- but, Sherman, I really don't think-" Ford starts, alarmed, and Shermie impatiently throws his hands into a wordless gesture, before shoving both into his pockets.

"Stanford Pines, you listen to me right now," Shermie says sternly. "You are my brother and I love you, but if you're doing something underneath this house that puts the kids, or your brother, or your wife, or yourself, or anybody in this family, in _any_ kind of danger, I'm going to kick your ass square. You lost thirty years to this thing, and nothin's been right for anybody since you started this thing back in the day, and I don't even think I can listen to how this thing ate half of Stan's life on top of yours. So you're gonna show me this thing, Ford, because I deserve to know what it was that took you from us for thirty-odd years, and I think you fucking _know_ that."

Ford opens his mouth, then closes it. The last time he's felt this- this chastised, this small- was-

-well, maybe not all that long ago, back in one of the few places he'd felt safe, back in Dimension 52-

-he sighs.

"Alright, Sherman. You... you do deserve to know about this. I just... I'm not used to..." He waves a hand around, and Shermie barks a sad little laugh.

"To lettin' people in, Ford? Yeah, that's not exactly news, little bro."

Ford tucks his feet into his boots, his head down. "The last time I did, I-" Ford's hand goes to the pendant around his neck. It's still thumping gently, calm and regular. She's still alright. Ford clears his throat again. "It was Ripley, and I thought for years that I'd killed her."

"Oh, Stanford. Ripley had said you'd been separated a while, but- years?" Shermie says quietly. Ford jerks his head to the side- not quite a nod, not quite a denial.

"I don't know if anybody has... really explained the, ah, the time travel aspect of what happened. When I... when I went through, it was 1982, and I was thirty-one, and it was five years later that I met Ripley for the first time, in the latter half of 1987-"

Shermie makes a surprised noise, but when Ford glances curiously at him he waves at him to continue.

"-well... When I met Ripley, she was twenty-nine years old to my thirty-seven," Ford says, blinking. "But she was taken in the summer of 1994. She was born in 1975. She... she was thirty-four, when... And I didn't realize how high up we were, and I thought she would be safe, and she fell, and-" Ford releases a breath. "I spent... eighteen years, after that, thinking that my stupidity and failure had killed the only person I'd trusted since... since Stan."

"Oh, Stanford," Shermie says, and Ford winces.

"Between the last time she saw me and the next time she arrived on this planet, for Ripley, it was... about three and a half years. She's the age I was when I met her now." Ford is worried, a little, that Shermie's still going to be- upset, angry, disgusted with him for having failed Ripley back then- but when he spares a look, his brother's eyes are already leaking, tracks forming down into his gray beard.

"I didn't even remember what she sounded like when I came back. I didn't even recognize her at first," he admits, and he doesn't have time to confess how it's been- how bad he's been at this- since he got home, because Shermie's throwing his arms around Ford and squeezing his face into his (Ripley's?) shirt.

"Aw, Ford, you knucklehead," Shermie says roughly, dangerously close to a sob. Alarmed, Ford realizes that if this goes on much longer he's apt to start in on it himself. "Ford, you big dumb- you got me cryin', now."

"I-I apologize," Ford says hesitantly, and Shermie shakes his head, his face still buried against Ford's chest and shoulder.

"Ford- I'm sorry," he says, his grip tightening, as if he's afraid that Ford might flee. (He might. This went from the one subject he didn't want to talk about- the portal- to the one thing he didn't want to think about- Feelings. It's awful.) "I'm still not sure how this family went from psychics and demons and monsters to- to aliens and Weird Science and time travel, but you-"

Ford tenses, and Shermie pulls back, sniffling.

"-you _needed_ a big brother, and I was here, safe an' sound, figurin' you'd run off to hunt mermaids in Russia or somethin' while you were goin' through all that," he says miserably. He gives another sniffle, and Ford blinks, fumbling for his glasses. "Can't help but feel like a real bad brother to you right now, Stanford."

"It wasn't your-" Ford tries, and Shermie pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and noisily blows into it. Ford takes a step back, mildly horrified. "I don't- I don't know if they have mermaids in Russia. Alright, uh- okay. Do you want to go downstairs now?"

"Yeah," Shermie says hoarsely. "Let's go down, get an eyeful of some science, and maybe, uh, avoid another cryin' jag, huh?"

 

__~ ~ ~ ~ ~_ _

 

_Toad hungers, Toad dies_

_Whisper hungers, Whisper lies_

 

__~ ~ ~ ~ ~_ _

 

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A man walks into a bar, says "ow."

No? A man walks into a bar. He's never been here before, but he's low on cash, panhandling hasn't worked out for him, and the last few times he tried to earn a little money to put gas in the Stanleymobile he really, really badly misjudged the guys he met. A man walks into a bar and he's desperate, twenty-three years old, five years into a twelve-and-a-half year stint of next to no contact with anyone in his immediate family outside of a mother he rarely calls anymore. (Spoiler alert: she's not gonna get the chance to warn him before the lung cancer gets her in three years' time.) A man walks into a bar ready to do a lot of things if it'll get him fed. A man walks into a bar and here's the joke: is the man named Rico Echeverria a simple criminal? Is he a mastermind? Is he a puppet of demonic forces? That's the joke: **you're never going to know** , just like how the man who walks into the bar has no way of knowing that the next seven years of his life will be hell thanks to Rico, just like how he has no way of knowing that Rico will leave him rotting in a Colombian prison for three months. Is Rico merely a bad man? There are plenty of bad men; he isn't the first or the last. The man who walks into the bar draws people like that to him, like some kind of perverse magnet. Is Rico some kind of warlord or drug kingpin or master manipulator? He very well might be, for all anyone knows. He certainly gets the drop on our favorite lying manipulator quite a few times before our guy wises up. Does some demonic force work through him, wrist-deep in a brain soaked in decades of petty evils, twisting the man who walks into the bar into the kind of man who has nothing to stop him from coming when his estranged brother calls, into the kind of man who would throw away thirty years of his life for a brother that he doesn't even _pretend_ to believe could love him? It's certainly possible. You didn't think Jimmy Snakes was an isolated incident, did you?

Oh, so you've heard that one, huh? Try this one on for size- a man walks into a bar. Last time he was in town, he was an angry eighteen-year-old, but he's been gone for five years,  _a long time_ , and things change, people change. A man walks into a bar and boy, does he need a drink or three. He's turned his life around, at least a little bit, but he was called here by family. Family has only ever disappointed and hurt him, but he comes like an obedient dog when he's called. He hates it. He hates that he couldn't make himself stay away for his own sake. He hates that he's lived half his life with his mother alive and half his life with her dead, and that his awful, addled dad sometimes almost acts like the person his mom had loved. He hates that he wants his dad to be that person again, that he was willing to give up a good job- a good _life_ \- in Klamath Falls to come back here and be his dad's minder. He hates it so much that when he sleeps he grinds his teeth, and dreams of a literal millstone round his neck, and dreams of his father running ahead of him, slamming every door they come to shut. It's such a relief the night he dreams of his mother instead. A man walks into a bar, and it's a dream, so all he sees is a woman in scrubs who looks unhurt but who leaves bloody prints and smears on everything she touches. He weeps into his mother's chest, a lonely twelve-year-old boy again, and when she tells him that she can return his dad to him, that she can fix him but that it'll take some time, and all he needs to do is owe a favor- of course he says yes. Of course he does. For the sake of the narrative we'll pretend that he can't see that his mother's eyes are golden-yellow in this dream, but we all know that I don't actually _have_ to give you that visual cue to let you know that it was me all along. Here's the punchline: do you think he remembers making that deal nine years before a scarred blonde swordswoman blew into town and fixed his dad, fulfilling _my_ end of the deal?

Tough crowd. Alright. A man walks into a bar, and you've seen this before: you saw this scene way back in Chapter Six, Epilogue, and you saw the aftermath of it back in Chapter Two, Private Helicopter. A man walks into a bar; he has six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot and he has a hundred flurbos in his left pocket, because he finally pawned off the bracelet he made for his wife. He hopes this is enough money to buy a lethal amount of space booze. It could be, but I'm not done with him, I need him alive- or, at least, warm- in Gravity Falls, Oregon, summer of 2012 in Dimension 46*\\. Some idiot has me tattooed on her bicep, giving me a view of this entire farce, so I step in a little, point him in the direction of a Rick Sanchez- not the one he knew, because the last thing I need is those two jerks comparing notes. Rick C-137 makes it easy, though, because the added weight of canon bends reality around him, makes it easy for him to believe that he's the center of more than one universe. He doesn't question running into yet another Sixer Pines on this night, just after the birth of his grandson, and he's not going to remember the description Sixer gives of his missing wife- blonde, tall, glasses, scars- when all the Ricks in the Citadel finally realize that they've collectively misplaced their sisters. The connection to Ford Pines could have sent half of those missing women home that night, if he'd remembered, if he'd realized, and here's the kicker, buddy: Did C-137 have a sister, or was he one of the ones who was an only child? Did he think to look for her after he Cronenberged the world? Does C-137 even know she exists, or did he put her away with the rest of his bad and painful memories, did he suck her out of his skull to gather dust with the rest of the Morty's Mind Blowers tubes? That's a funny one, right? Does C-137 remember designing the gun he uses to blast the memories out of his skull, or, like McGucket, did the design come to him in a **dream**? Those guns do the same thing, they work the same way, they accomplish the same goal, and the best part is, I don't even have to be there anymore to make them use it on themselves. Ain't _that_ a kick in the head?

Let's shake it up a little: a woman walks into a bar. We've watched her walk into bars before, but this is a bar in Spokane, and she's pissed off because she thought she could die heroically in the act of saving good ol' Six-Fingers, and Hungry Fish wouldn't let her. (It's the first time she's walked into a bar since she murdered her shapeshifting demon girlfriend, and for the first time since a younger version of Goanna stabbed her in the arm, she's not surrepticiously checking everyone's eyes. She thinks she's safe. I don't even have to hide my eyes when I let her con a couple of businessmen into buying her drinks from the bartender I'm wearing.) A woman walks out of a bar, stumbling over her own feet, and let's not kid ourselves, if I wanted to I could make it so she doesn't get back to the hotel room where Hungry Fish is waiting up for her. If having her around- if allowing her to do the things she will do over the next few weeks- was in any way an impediment to the goal I've been working toward since before this ball of dirt was formed, I would let nature take its course, and let the businessman who follows her from the bar corner her in the next alleyway. Maybe I send a cop down that road, maybe I don't let anything happen to her. Or maybe I do- maybe I just watch as this guy shoves her against a wall, because I know what happens next. Maybe he only _thinks_ he has the upper hand for a moment, before her mouth opens, before her _mouths_ open. Maybe he has time to scream, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he wakes up confused, missing most of a day, covered in savage bites. Maybe he doesn't wake up. Now ask yourself: does she fail to remember because she was wasted? Does she fail to remember because I want her to go back to that house with those kids in it and I know she won't if she thinks this might happen again? Did _any_ of this even happen, or does she have a quiet, embarrassing evening in a hotel bar three or four blocks away and make it back without any trouble? When I spend most of the next day showing myself to Spectacles so he can put the other two on edge again, is it because I'm just fucking with them or is it because I'm watching to see if I have to clean up another outburst?

 **Stop me if you've heard this one before:** the Rift is just a distraction. The Henchmaniacs are just a distraction. Natashoggoth's just a distraction. Sixer's back in his home dimension, and all I need now is to make him desperate enough to let me back in. Do you really think I _don't_ know that Weirdmageddon will be confined to the town? Do you really think this is the first time I've done this? Did you _ever_ think this was about the ants?

~~_**pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain** _ ~~

 

__~ ~ ~ ~ ~_ _

 

_Father hungers, Father waits_

_Mother Hunger stitches fates_

 

__~ ~ ~ ~ ~_ _

 

Ripley stands next to her car- fed and caffienated and just starting to sweat in the late morning sun- and fidgets uncomfortably with her keys, unable to look at Fiddleford. He reaches over, giving her arm a pat.

"Ya don't gotta go straight home," he says, sounding tired. She nods a couple of times, pulling out her phone. A couple of missed calls from Rick- probably trying to reach her after she kept calling him yesterday- and finally a text message from an hour ago, _hey we will be comin over later_. She makes a production of texting back, even though it's just a short _sure see you later_ , and plays with the phone a little before jamming it back into her pocket.

"You want to go shopping?" she asks weakly. "We could go to the Swap Meet and get some groceries to make a nice dinner, the Sanchezes are gonna come over later. O-Or we could go to the mall and get some... some board games to play with the kids before- before they leave."

"We can decide this with the AC runnin'," Fidds says, and she nods and unlocks the doors so they can climb in. She starts the car and idles in the parking lot at Greasy's for a few seconds before extending an arm and squeezing Fiddleford's hand in hers.

"I know it wasn't gonna be the kids here forever," she says slowly, her head down. "I always knew that."

"That's right," Fidds says calmly, and she pulls away so she can get the car moving.

"I always knew they were gonna go home to California," she adds. "I always knew it was just gonna be Stan and Ford and you and me that stays." She hesitates, rolling to a stop at the corner. "I... didn't always know that. I didn't make any plans beyond the end of the summer. I didn't make any plans past gettin' Ford back."

"Yup," Fiddleford nods. "Seems like it."

"I didn't think I'd make any friends," she admits, drumming her fingers on the wheel. "I didn't think there'd... be anybody for me. When I came here I thought I'd find an abandoned old shack in the woods, and maybe... maybe not live that much longer than that. An' I found all these people, and I love them, and I don't know how to do that, I don't know how to do any of it, so I thought as long as I was useful I'd... maybe I'd start to deserve it if somebody wanted to love me back?"

"Well," Fiddleford says, after several seconds of silence. "For... for what it's worth, bein' that I'm... an old man who don't know how to love people either... but for what it's worth, I don't know if anybody'd stand up to tell ya that it's about what you do or don't deserve. I think if you'd mebbe... ask the people you love how they feel... I think you'd find that they all love ya back. I wish- I _sorely_ wish I knew who it was that tried ta make you think you were the kind of person who wouldn't deserve that."

Ripley pulls into the parking lot for the Swap Meet, sniffling quietly as she puts the Ripleymobile in park and blinks furiously at her lap.

_i don't know how many times somebody told you that you weren't worth saving_

"F-Fiddleford," she asks, her voice breaking. "D-do you-?"

She can't finish the sentence, deeply ashamed of asking and sure, _certain_ , that she knows the answer, that she's asking too much, that she's wrong to make him have to _say_ that he doesn't. She is surprised into crying when he throws himself into an awkward hug, arms wrapped tight around her. She's dimly aware that there's a seatbelt between them. She thinks tears might be rolling off her nose into his sparse white hair.

"I surely do," he tells her, his voice muffled. "I love you. A whole hell of a lot."

She huffs a strangled little laugh, squishing him a little before reluctantly releasing him. "G-good. Good. It'd be awkward if it was just me, then." She scrubs vigorously at her face with her sleeve, and he makes a noise that could be an agreement as he gets a couple of napkins out of her glove compartment and hands them over. "Come on, we should hit the booths now so we can get back in time for lunch."

"That's the spirit," Fiddleford agrees, and she sniffles at him some more. Despite the fact that they just both do enjoy the actual act of shopping- of moving leisurely around, not being chased out of anywhere, with the freedom to pick something up and buy it and take it home instead of having to resort to stealing it later- they're both kind of quiet and down this time. Makes sense, especially after Ripley's kind of... well, not kind of, she definitely ruined last night with the whole "making everyone talk" thing and she's pretty sure she ruined today with all this stuff about crying and feelings and whatnot. She comforts herself with the knowledge that if she sticks her hand out, Fiddleford'll grab it.

"Hey, I'm gonna get some of that haunted beeswax soap," she says, pointing out a plainly-marked booth apparently selling exactly that. The soap bars are molded into little ghost shapes and everything. "You want any?"

"Nah, I-" Fiddleford stops, scratching his chin. "I'm not sure I see the appeal."

Ripley heads towards the booth, eager to find something to distract herself with. She almost doesn't notice when Fiddleford tenses next to her, not until she turns to show him one of the little novelties.

"Oh, Tate," she says, and he dips his head in a brief nod. "Hey, you know if these soaps are any good?"

"I haven't tried'em," he says flatly. "I actually came over to ask you something."

"Oh, sure, sure," Ripley says, putting the display soap back down. "What is it?"

"Uh, no offense, but-" He jerks a thumb towards Fiddleford. "I really need your help, but- eh. It's probably a good idea if I asked you this some other time."

"Oh, uh-" Fiddleford puts his hands in his pockets, and Ripley bites back what she wants to say- Tate's her friend, after all- and takes a deep breath.

"Tate, your dad's part of my team, if you need my help your dad's bound to be involved," she reasons, and he shrugs a little, clearly uncomfortable.

"It's... related to that portal science stuff you're always talking about," he says quietly. "I just thought- after everything Dad saw when he got his head stuck in there, it'd be better if we didn't, you know, bring those memories back up."

"Oh-" Ripley says, putting a hand to her face. "Oh, uh- yeah. Okay. I mean-"

She glances helplessly at Fiddleford, who's looking more perplexed than upset, which is an improvement. "Well- I mean, if it's just a quick question, we could- we could go over there, right? I'm gonna be real busy this weekend, the kids are supposed to be headin' home-"

"Yeah, that's fine, it'll just be a minute," Tate says quickly, stepping towards the sheltered space between the back of the booth and the stand of trees.

"...wait," Fiddleford says slowly, eyes narrowing behind his glasses. "Who are you...?"

"Fidds, it's your son," Ripley says desperately, shooting Tate a pleading look. "Can- can this wait? It really seems-"

"It's kind of urgent, Savage," Tate points out, and Ripley rakes a hand through her hair before turning back to Fiddleford for a moment.

"Okay, uh- just wait here, Fidds," she says, flustered, before jogging over to catch up. "Tate, what-"

"There's something happening in the woods," he tells her, glancing back over his shoulder at the trees. "It's- it's getting bad in there. The unicorns and the witches are saying they've seen things in the scrying pools- Pines isn't the only person with a working portal out of this dimension."

"What? No, that- we should have noticed that," she says, alarmed, and he shakes his head.

"I didn't believe it myself, but creatures are being taken left and right," he says, lowering his hat over his eyes and hunching his shoulders. "I haven't- I haven't heard from Multi-Bear in a few days, and when I went up the mountain his cave was empty, and there were scorch marks all over the ceiling. The woodland creatures are talking about storming the Mystery Shack and staging a rescue themselves."

"Tate, they- they can't," Ripley says, inhaling shakily. "Tate, they can't, that- that portal doesn't actually work anymore, we broke too much of it to make a stable doorway. It's- it's not gonna work."

"Savage, there- there has to be some way to save them," he says, fear bleeding into his normally stoic voice. "It's- isn't there some way to- to get-"

"Well, I-" Ripley chews on her lower lip, before reaching into her bag. "Well- I mean- how much of a door are we talking about? And- and do you know where the creatures were taken?"

"Ripley!" She glances over, and Fiddleford is hobbling towards them and gaining speed. "Ripley, that ain't my son!"

"God, Tate, I'm so sorry," she breathes out, her hand tightening around Sparky's hilt. "Look, tell the forest creatures I have this- it's a way to get through to any other dimension, I'll come and I'll save the ones who got taken, I just- I just need a little time-"

His hand snakes out and wraps around the handle, and she startles back slightly.

"Tate-?" she asks, and when he smiles at her, she knows.

 

__~ ~ ~ ~ ~_ _

 

_The golden king selects his thrall,_

_And ushers in the heavens’ fall_

_But vessels can become the chain_

_And shackles that disrupt the reign_

_That fearsome king will someday learn_

_That even despots’ flesh may burn_

 

_~ ~ ~ ~ ~_

 

 The basement lab is cold compared to the house- Ford keeps glancing over to see Shermie rubbing his arms through his sleeves. It's bright, down here- Ripley and Stan did that, it hadn't seemed necessary when Ford built this place to keep it well-lit. It seems obvious, in the harsh light of the construction lamps, that this thing is just that. A thing. An object. It doesn't seem as impressive as it did in 1982, when its blue fire was the only light source in this cavernous lab. With the lights on, Ford can see into every dark corner, can see how small this room and its contents really is.

"So, uh. These used to be the turbines," Ford says weakly, pointing at one that looks like it's been melted apart and carved like an unfortunate turkey. "This is the one Ripley destroyed because the portal wouldn't turn off. It, uh- see, it's- gravitational anomalies can occur when the portal is running. Even though Stan and Ripley didn't actually open this portal- that would have been too dangerous- they were using its specially-designed computer systems to run the search for my location in the multiverse, and apparently the power lines kept tripping over into the actual..." Ford runs a hand over his face. "It's not their fault. Stan and Ripley and Fiddleford were operating this as safely as they could have. They didn't know that it would be a danger, and once it began to be a threat they destroyed it rather than let it run long enough to find me."

"So they... they could have gotten you back faster, but it would have put the kids in danger if they did?" Shermie asks, and Ford nods. "They didn't know it was gonna be dangerous... but you did, didn't you?"

"Not... at first," Ford says, running the flat of his hand against the console where Stan's kept a photo of the kids for... well, a while, as far as Ford knows. He hasn't moved it. "When I did realize the error of this design, I... wrote down warnings against turning it back on-"

"-then how come-"

"In invisible ink," Ford mutters. "And, ah. Didn't write down anywhere that there were extra notes in invisible ink. And I also separated the books containing the instructions and the warnings into three different hiding places, and Stan only had one of them for thirty years."

Shermie strokes his beard a few times.

"I love you, Ford," he says finally, "but that is the most incomprehensible part of this. You- you knew it was dangerous enough to warn against, but you didn't put the warnings where anybody could see them, at all."

"I wasn't in the best state of mind at the time," Ford says, and Shermie pats him on the back.

"I gathered as much, little brother." He gestures at the pile of working parts in the corner of the room. "So what's the story behind all that, then?"

"I-" Ford takes a deep breath. "I'm making a smaller one. Not as... not as complicated as Ripley's portal sword. Really, it's- it's just supposed to work once. Open it, deliver a package, come back."

"This seems like a real bad idea," Shermie says tentatively, "based upon what little I've heard this weekend, it seems like... like it's exactly as dangerous as the big one was."

"It's not," Ford says defensively, and Shermie raises his bushy eyebrows over both of his round wire-rimmed lenses. Ford clears his throat. "It's not as dangerous because it won't run for as long to get the portal fully open and it won't stay open as long, and the process of closing it will expel the excess energy into the dimension I open it into, instead of this one. It's essentially a foolproof plan, because if the bomb doesn't destroy the Nightmare Realm, the sudden influx of chrono-physical matter and energy certainly will!"

Ford gives Shermie a bright smile, extending his index finger, and Shermie presses both of his hands together, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply before continuing.

"Ford, what in the actual fuck," he says, eerily calm.

"I didn't think we were allowed to use that kind of language around the- the kids," Ford stammers, deflating.

"The kids ain't in here, Stanford Filbrick Pines, what the fuck are you thinking!?" Shermie shouts, echoing off the basement's stone walls. "You're building a bomb under the house! An actual bomb! In addition to the dangerous thing that your wife told you is dangerous, which is apparently also a bomb?!"

"Sherman, I need to do this," Ford tries to explain, looking around. "Look- I can't tell Ripley or the kids, Sherman, but this- this is the only way of defeating an evil force that threatens all of existence, _Sherman_!"

"I'm not even gonna ask why you think that you, specifically, are responsible for, ugh, what, destroying the concept of evil? Or something?" Shermie pinches the bridge of his nose under his glasses, and for a moment Ford thinks that it's an awfully familiar gesture. Then it hits him that Stan does it, and that even Dipper and Ripley have picked it up from him this summer. Ford tries not to smile a little at the thought, despite the exasperated and upset expression on his brother's face. "But Ford, has it even once occured to you that even if it IS your job to do that, it can't be a one-man job to save the whole entire multiverse?"

"There was a prophecy," Ford tells him, and Shermie breathes noisily out. "And I spoke to the Oracle herself- she foresaw that I have the face of the man fated to destroy Bill Cipher, and-"

"And there are three people in this house as we _speak_ to have that face, you knucklehead!" Shermie snaps. "And if what you an' Ripley been sayin' yesterday is true, then there's a LOT of Stanford Pineses, right? An infinite number of slight variations on the same theme, I believe was the phrase bandied around?"

"We didn't bandy around-" Ford starts, then sighs. "Sherman, this- this is Plan B. Plan A was me going to face that monster head-on and assassinate him in the Nightmare Realm myself, but Stan and Ripley opened a portal to rescue me right before I could complete my goal, and-"

"Wait, that wasn't planned with you?" Shermie asks, sound and slightly shrill. "Were you plannin' on _dyin'_ there, Ford, did- do you _want_ to die?"

"I didn't have a way TO get back, it was the only way!" Ford shouts back, bristling. He's not- he's not even entirely sure why Shermie's so upset when it's clearly about something bigger than Ford, he's not at all sure why he's so upset and defensive at Shermie's question. "Sherman, this way- this plan is better, because I'll get to come home afterwards! Don't you see, I- I don't want-"

Ford laces his fingers together, eyes squeezed shut. "I don't want to die, Sherman, I want to- I want to do all that stuff that I didn't get to do. I want to go fishing with Stan and the kids and I want to come to your house like Stan did for the holidays, I want to meet Jacob and the twins' mother-"

"Coral," Shermie supplies, sounding strained.

"-I want to work with my best friend again, I want to take my wife on a date, I want- I want this," he says helplessly, finally looking up. "I don't want to die a hero anymore, Sherman, I- I don't even-" Ford's breath catches in his throat. "I don't even think I want to _be_ a hero anymore, Shermie, but I brought this monster down on all of us, and I have to fix it. I have to fix this."

"Ford, you can't do stuff like this on your own," Shermie says quietly, putting his hands on Ford's shoulders. "You think I don't know what you're goin' through right now, and I know I haven't been in this constant danger that you been in for all this time, but Ford, this isn't the kind of thing anybody can face alone. And you don't have to now. You got all of us lookin' out for you, Ford, and we'll all listen. It's okay to let us help."

His rough hand moves to the side of Ford's face, giving it a small pat. "Look at me, you knucklehead. It took me thirty-four years and I'm only just now doin' what Ma asked, but I'm sure as shit gonna get this done if it's the last thing I do."

"What's that?" Ford asks wetly, and his brother grins faintly at him.

"I'm gonna _fix this family_ , Ford." He gives him another hug- briefer this time, less overt crying- and takes a step back. "Let's get the hell out of this tomb. Jess and I were talkin' earlier, and I- I was gonna tell Stan first, but I'm tellin' you now. Jess and me-"

"Jess and I," Ford says, and Shermie gives him a small, harmless punch in the arm.

"The two of us were talkin' earlier, and we thought- maybe we don't gotta take the kids for the rest of August. I know you don't really got the space for it here, so maybe Jess and I can stay in that hotel Ripley said her friend runs. The kids'll have their birthdays up here, and we'll all head back to Piedmont on the first, and when the kids' parents get back we'll get you guys to come down and we can get everything straightened out."

"Sherman, I can say with absolute certainty that the kids and Stan and Ripley are going to love this plan," Ford says seriously. Shermie gives his shoulder a squeeze as they pile into the elevator to head upstairs. Stan gives him a nervous look as they pass through the kitchen, and Ford gives him a faint, shaky smile.

"Hey," Stan says awkwardly. "Uh-"

"It's going to be alright," Ford says, feeling- feeling like he honestly means it. He thinks he might. He thinks everything's going to be good, and he doesn't know what to do with that but he's bursting at the seams to tell Ripley about it.

"About that," Stan says quickly. "So, uh- so guess who's in the living room with Jess and the kids?"

"Who?" Shermie asks pleasantly.

"Surprise Sanchezes," Stan says, straightening his tie. "So, uh, you might wanna... re-evaluate your stance on the whole 'alright' thing, bro."

"I'm.... absolutely sure that it won't be that bad," Ford says uncertainly. "Let's-"

The thunderclap itself isn't so bad- summer storms are rare, but not that surprising. The lightning that streaks across the sky in a violent orange-green slash, however, is.

"What the hell," Shermie asks, peering through the kitchen window at it.

Ford's hand goes to the pendant around his neck, even as he runs out onto the back porch. Outside, the sudden wind is whipping at his hair. Stan follows, grabbing the back of his- Ripley's?- his shirt.

"Ford, what is that?" Stan asks, sounding- scared, yes, but also desperate, pleading. Stan's had thirty years of first-hand experience screwing with portals. Stan knows what that is.

Ford's hand drops from the motionless pendant. The wind is hot. Already, animals and creatures are fleeing from the epicenter of the open wound in reality.

"It's... it's the end of the world," Ford whispers.

 

_~ ~ ~ ~ ~_

 

 

_Shattered blade, bleeding eyes_

_Reborn, Mother Hunger rises_


End file.
